Discovery
by CruxMDQ
Summary: The dust has yet to settle down when the remaining agents of Citadel authority receive news of a previously unknown mass relay. With most of the militaries across the galaxy in shambles, the aid of several unlikely agents must be enlisted to secure it - and explore what lies beyond.
1. Preliminaries

"I don't like to repeat myself." Aria's voice was dangerously low and barely audible above the noise of the music that echoed in the Afterlife lounge. "You want to do business here, you pay."

"What you demand is outrageous! You're taking all my profit away!" The batarian pounded the balcony rail with his armored hand. At once the bodyguards all around both the asari and her 'guest' pointed their guns at the smuggler's head.

"Another gesture like that and you're a dead man." The woman turned around elegantly to face the batarian, a gesture that somehow lent a crushing weight to her threat. Her face was expressionless, other than for a glare that her minions had learned to dread. "Consider yourself lucky that I don't change the deal. One quarter of your income, in eezo, every standard week. It's that, or we can test our orbital defenses the next time one of your freighters is around." A glance at Bray, a slight gesture of her head, and the batarian shoved the smuggler away from Aria's presence.

The asari kingpin sat slowly on her couch and looked at another of her batarian henchmen, Sanak, who brought up his tablet and read something on it. "There's a male quarian who wants to see you next."

She snorted. For centuries the spacing vagabonds had been looked down upon, the few that eventually reached Omega being forced to share the squalor of the poorest areas of the station with the vorcha, but that had changed recently. Now the wandering aliens were becoming a rare sight, and seldom seen without the escort of their erstwhile enemies, the robotic geth. "Business?"

"Not on smuggling, not on slaving. Brought a retinue of geth bodyguards with him to the station. He refused to speak to anyone but you."

Aria toyed a bit with the information but was unable to make up her mind on the issue. "Bring him in."

As always had been the case with his species, the quarian's face was obscured by the visor of his helmet, only the glowing spots of his eyes distinguishable. His armor was green in hue, a dark tint to it. The man remained impassive, gaze locked with Aria's, as Bray scanned him. "He's clean."

She bent her head sideways, glancing at the couch to her left. The quarian sat without word. "You have a name?"

The voice had an unsettling echo to it. "Val'Akar, emissary from Admiral Zorah of the Scouting Fleet."

"So, you're on official business." She crossed her legs.

"In a way. Commander Shepard spoke of you as the only authority figure on the Terminus systems who could deal with this rationally."

Aria smirked. Her voice dropped with irony: "The very Savior of the Galaxy trusts me with delicate information. I'm just thrilling with excitement."

Val'Akar's head bowed slightly. It irked the kingpin not being able to see the man's features. But her quip proved true: "A new mass relay has been discovered. You are the closest 'trustworthy' figure at hand. Shepard counseled the Admiral to bring this to you." The man had accented 'trustworthy' with disdain. Clearly he disagreed with Shepard's judgment, but he was acting on orders. He produced his own tablet computer and typed a few commands. "I'm submitting the location to you now."

Aria's mind raced. It was crystal clear that her heroic acquaintance could not bring any influences to bear without consequences; Citadel forces had no business on Terminus space, but unknown mass relays were hazardous. Activating one had unleashed the rachni on the galaxy hundreds of years ago, which had in turn caused the rise of the krogan. The Relay 314 incident had had the terrans join galactic society after a brief but grueling war with the turians. And even if it was not immediately activated, its very presence was a threat that appeared just when the dust was beginning to clear after the defeat of the Reapers.

And, of course, it had not escaped Shepard that now she owned a state-of-the-art fleet, courtesy of Cerberus' Oleg Petrovsky. "And what does your Admiral want?"

"If a Terminus agency can guarantee the relay is kept closed, she will not interfere. If that is not the case, she is bringing part of the Heavy Fleet to guard it."

She smirked. "Who would have imagined the vagrants would someday play cops?"

Val'Akar remained impassive. "You could also have the Turian armada on your doorstep, smuggler."

_What remains of it._ It was cause for concern, of course. The alliance Shepard had engineered had brought together many former enemies. Turians would go to war on their own outside Citadel space to enforce Council laws on dormant relays. If their strength did not suffice, they could -_would,_ she corrected herself- call for help. And help would come. "That would be inconvenient," she conceded. "Send word to your Admiral and say that her warning is appreciated."

The quarian bowed his head again in consent, stood, and left without word. She gestured at Bray. "Keep a tight lid on this."

"You don't have to say it, boss."

"There's always a need to say it." She turned to her console. "Ahz!"

"Yes, boss?" Came the salarian's reply.

"Signal our fleet. Time to put the stuff Cerberus surrendered to good use." She watched Val'Akar walk through the gate to the outer Afterlife lounge, catching a glimpse of his massive geth bodyguards. The galaxy was still too convulsed by the aftermath of the Reaper War for her to catch a glimpse of the future balance of power, but the quarians would probably get even for the centuries they had spent on the lower tiers of the totem pole._  
_

* * *

Half a galaxy away, one admiral Piotr Mikhailovich was dwelling on the same issue, though on a broader scope. He was pacing, alone, on the empty hall of the Council conference room. The new councillors had still to be appointed. When the Reapers had moved the Citadel to its new place above Earth, they had wiped the station clean of life. Those few who had fled to space to escape the harvest -somehow 'slaughter' was an inadequate term to describe killing in such a clinical, cold and detached scale- had been caught by the massive armada around the station. Some very lucky 23 survivors out of a total population exceeding 13 million had escaped to tell the tale.

Humans had problems of their own to solve before they could select their own councillor. The fallout of Udina's betrayal had been mercifully looked past by the rest of the Council races, in light of the brilliant and courageous leadership of Anderson, Hackett and Shepard, but even if it had become an affair to be digested privately by the Alliance government, it was a shame that weighed heavily on the minds of those involved.

He heard the hiss of a pneumatic door sliding open and the steps of boots echoing on the shadowy rotunda. Mikhailovich did not need to turn his head to know who was coming. But he did turn to greet the visitor. "Captain Shepard." He saluted first, as he would address a superior.

"Admiral." The lean N7 officer returned the salute. "You feel it too, I guess."

Mikhailovich nodded. "No amount of cleaning can remove it. I remember Udina raging over the Council ignoring your warnings, right there." He shook his head slowly. "I guess frustration got the better off him."

"I never liked Udina much, either. Reasons or no reasons..." Suddenly the specter of Saren jumped to mind, and the Illusive Man's after him, both dead by their own hands. They had both needed help to see just how thoroughly the Reapers had corrupted them. While many had admired Shepard's courage or fighting skills, fewer had recognized the... idealism, was it? Had Shepard ceased to try persuading them to change their ways on any step of the journey, things could have ended very differently. But the N7 officer had not. That much had been said to the Cerberus leader... and, against all odds, the war had been fought and won without compromising the soul of the human species. "Treason can never be condoned, but chalking it simply to evil or greed is stupid. We must learn all that we can from his fall."_  
_

"Keep talking like that and you'll get elected councillor yourself."

A snort. "The only councils I intend to preside are either on my ship or on my family quarters." Due to personal request, Shepard had been allowed to remain in command of the vessel, politely refusing every other manner of honor and reward. The Normandy SR2 had thus become a diplomatic cruiser of sorts, its commander an unofficial speaker and ambassador on behalf of humanity - and also proof to the military ingenuity of the human-turian alliance, for it was constantly updated and improved as the special operations frigate it was originally conceived as. The message was clear enough: a_s big as the carrots we bring may be, there's even bigger sticks in store if they're needed.__  
_

"'Family' is it now?" Mikhailovich smiled.

"Why, yes, Admiral. Alina just turned two months." It was impossible not to be flooded with joy at the thought of Shepard's and Liara T'Soni's newborn daughter. She was in every way her mother's vivid image, with big, clear, warm eyes and the most serene of tempers. "She's not one year old and already I pity her suitors."

"Pardon me if I can't conceive an asari baby being a handful. Other than what's usual on a baby, that is."

"Whoever wants to marry her will have to please a *lot* of surrogate uncles and aunts." The list was impressive. Garrus and Tali alone made for the best godparents anyone could ever want. And, considering they could not have kids on their own, they would indulge her like loving grannies. Even if they were to refuse the role -to call that unlikely would be a grotesque exercise in understatement-, there were plenty of people to fill in for them, ranging from the foul-mouthed Jack to the hypercompetent Miranda to say something.

"I heard your wife is uncannily young a mother for her age..."

"Well, yes, usually asari bear children when they are much older, but..." Liara had wanted to share the most of it with Shepard. The reasons were obvious enough, and something neither wanted to dwell on. The echoes of their voices on the grand hall filled the N7 commando's head; the specters they conjured were not as ominous as those Mikhailovich had dwelt upon. _Whatever happens, she will grow in a much safer galaxy now._ A shrug. "However much I like it, I don't think you wanted to talk to me about family matters."_  
_

The officer nodded. "Correct. There's talk about future councillors, as I said. The turians have narrowed their pool down to four candidates, last thing I read, so I expect them to make their decision soon. Can't say the same about their colleagues, though. The Reapers outdid themselves when laying waste to Thessia. Their ranks are all in shambles. Waiting for the remaining matriarchs to agree upon someone could take months."

"We could suggest a deputy to fill in temporarily."

"It's been considered," Mikhailovich agreed. "There's about half a dozen names on the dossier High Command requested. Someone went as far as to suggest Sha'ira..."

Of all people, Liara herself had teasingly discussed the Consort when it had been revealed that she had 'entertained' Shepard. The commando nodded both to show agreement and to hide the smirk. "I haven't met an asari who is both as sinuous _and_ as sincere in her dealings... as a politician I think she'd be someone to fear, being as persuasive and reasonable as she is. Other candidates?"

"There's Aethyta, too, your wife's mother, but she's not as liked. I do, though. She's... practical. And blunt. She's not one to put up with nonsense."

That she had been one of the 23 survivors of the Citadel purge was only testament to just how tough the matriarch was. "That's what happens when one of your parents is a krogan." A shrug. "Wrex would love her. She'd be, as you said, practical and blunt. Someone to rely on if quick decisions were needed."

Mikhailovich smiled and shook his head. "This is a first time. Of all people you like your mother-in-law for the job."

An amused snort. "Aethyta is not to be crossed. You got her on your side, she'll be loyal to you all the way. Problem is you'd have to convince her of grabbing the job first. She's merely a _bartender_ now, and happily enjoying it."

"Not our job, thank God for that." He moved on to the next name on his list. "And last amongst the serious prospects is one Aria T'Loak."

Shepard disagreed with an emphatic headshake. "Discard her. What lunatic came up with her name?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Getting the bulk of the mercenaries behind her and working for us was no small feat. Even taking into account the hand you had in that."

"They'd never go for it. Even if she were the best leader her race has to offer, she's got enough charges on her head to fill a small book." _Not to mention the issues she'll have to deal with._ That Aria had been informed of the discovery of the Delta 9 relay was something the Alliance was not yet in the know of; the Spectres had decided on that, being as there was no Council appointed yet to deal with the problem.

"That may be. But there's some serious lobbying being done in her favor, mostly merchants who are less than pure in their dealings."

"It's not because she wants the job. She would prefer to have whoever fills the slot in her pocket, as she did with the previous Councillor. Who else?"

"No big names... mostly appointees of this or that group of matriarchs. All those string pullers will have the rug swept from under their feet if they don't make up their mind soon."

_Sha'ira or Aethyta... _Shepard could not decide whether the Consort's otherworldly people skills would serve to bring harmony to the Council - or to manipulate it as the asari best saw fit. Liara's mother (father?) was nowhere nearly as influential, but was still well regarded by her peers -she had threatened, obliquely, to have a hit put on Liara on their behalf if she misbehaved as the Shadow Broker- and was more of an action person, which the N7 commando liked better, too. "You're correct, I'd pick my mother-in-law. She's somewhat more predictable. Making an enemy out of her would be dangerous, but that's a hazard that can be planned around. Sha'ira... she's just too good for the office. I can see her splitting the Council into sides on each issue only to herd them her way later. On the other hand, she's too smart not to see how quickly everything would sour if the asari had their way on everything."

Mikhailovich nodded. It was, if nothing else, an accurate assessment. "And then there's the salarians..."

Shepard's eyes closed. The salarians had been split on the wake of the genophage being cured, with the dalatrasses referring to the issue as nothing short of an atrocity in the making and a majority of the military and scientific communities supporting the decision. "They were right pissed off after I told them to stick their proposal elsewhere." The N7 had vaguely intuited that they would be a thorn in the side if they survived the Reaper War. The dalatrasses wielded enormous political and economical clout and could quickly become foes to beware of if they were given any further incentive.

Mikhailovich read the commando's thoughts. "Nobody would dare to second-guess you, Captain. Even your Prothean fellow agrees that what you did appeared impossible. You did what it took to get it done."

As was also impossible to dismiss the testimony of the last representative of the ancient spacefaring race that had nurtured all of the current dominant species in the galaxy. "I was about to say, 'try telling that to an ego-bruised princess,' but thank whatever gods there are for Javik."

"So, the salarians will play ball. For now. I would not gamble that they'll pick someone willing to accomodate to our interests."

"You know how they wage war, Admiral. They would have the deck stacked in their favor if only the cards would obey them."

"What do the Spectres know? That you can tell, of course," Mikhailovich quickly backed off.

"Off the record."

"Off the record."

"The brightest stars on their military and R&D are with us. I wouldn't hazard that they can counteract the dalatrasses, but that's a lot of prestige on our side. The entire STG reveres Mordin as something of a legend now. All good news," Shepard decided. "With that huge fleet they got it's a stroke of luck that they are busy doing some soul-searching."

A brief nod. "They'd better realize the rest of the galaxy is not going to take a power play on their part kindly." Then, unexpectedly, a sigh and a hesitant smirk. "'The rest of the galaxy'... And to think a few years ago I was complaining of your choice of crew for the Normandy. When did I stop thinking of mankind first?"

"You never did, Admiral. You just changed your focus. We couldn't have saved Earth without all the help we got."

"The good of all is the good of us too," the officer agreed.

"Consider for a second what would have happened if Cerberus had prevailed."

That raised a specter Mikhailovich had dwelt on time and time again, only to be thankfully proven wrong given the accounts of the final confrontation between Shepard and the Illusive Man. "Coming from someone who worked for them that means something."

"Doctor Chakwas would argue that we didn't work for them, we used them. And she's right... without Cerberus the Collectors would have won."

The admiral exhaled slowly, eyes closed. "You needed Cerberus because the Alliance was not there when it should have." This was a failure the veteran admiral saw as his own, even if he knew that, by all rights, it was not the case. How had Shepard been brought back from the dead was an enigma that remained unanswered; the Illusive Man had taken some of the secrets of the fabled Lazarus Project with him to his grave. _Reaper tech? _He shook his head. "This must never happen again." He straightened his back. "What about the other races?"

A shrug and a smile answered him. "What makes you think I know? I'm not in charge of anything other than my ship, remember?"

Mikhailovich echoed the smile. "Says the most legendary Spectre ever."

"Please, don't play that tune. I had to tell my colleagues that no matter how many times they brought the idea to me I would not accept being appointed as their leader. Only one agency can lead the Spectres and I'm no agency. I'm just captain of a ship, spouse and parent."

"You can tell me the opinion of your colleagues then."

Shepard considered that for a moment. "If the Spectres had the legal power to do it, they would grant the krogan colonization rights on at least one more world, invite the quarians to send an ambassador, recognize the geth as a sentient, independent species, decree an amnesty for every criminal who fought against the Reapers..." The commando caught the gleam in Mikhailovich's eyes: "What?"

"You may not be in charge but that sounds like a government plan to me."

Another shrug. "I don't know. Spectres are not meant to decide in matters of state. We execute policy, do not make it."

"You may not like it, Captain, but while proper agencies sort their messes someone has to call the shots."

A headshake. "There's Hackett to fill that role. Nobody argued while he was in charge of Sword, Shield and Hammer." _But that was different, that was wartime, right? You can't expect soldiers to decide on government matters. _

_But I'm a soldier myself, too. _Shepard exhaled strongly.

Mikhailovich recognized that for what it was but let it rest for the moment. It was only right; the N7 commando had arguably done more than anyone else already. "Almost a year and he's still acting in place of the Council. He can't wait to be allowed to retire too."

* * *

Alliance military prison ship MSV Bataan

"Next prisoner!"

A single lithe shape stepped out of the bulk of formed up inmates and stood rigidly at attention. "Prisoner 89241 responding to call, sir!"

It was unusual for deep space prisons to have all of their population form up on a single hall. It had been unusual for these prisoners to come forward and voluntarily surrender themselves to their traditional enemy. It had been unusual to decide that, as a highly trained fighting force and being the Alliance dangerously short on men under arms, they were too valuable to simply let them serve out sentences as run-of-the-mill criminals, which they were not in any case.

And it was unique for formerly Cerberus operatives to be re-inducted on a probationary basis on Alliance ranks. Compared to the grueling regimes instituted by her former agency, what she and her fellows had been put through had been tough, but not to the point of stretching her limits. As a Phantom with exceptional biotic talents those limits had been unusually high, which had caused the Alliance officers to pay special attention to her. That had included simulations of both combat and non-combat situations, direct examination of her cybernetic implants, extirpation of Reaper technology that could not be repurposed or sanitized, psychological evaluations to detect traces of indoctrination, tests of biotic endurance and skill... The Alliance was desperate for manpower, but not foolish. Not one aspect of her had been overlooked.

"Prisoner 89241," her case officer, a tough-looking black man with an artificial right eye and a cruel scar running over that eye socket, glared at her speculatively. Her petite body was one long strand of muscle and sinew with not an ounce of fat, her large slanted eyes testimony to her Japanese ancestry. Nearly all of them were as fit. If anything, the officer had grudgingly admitted, those troops Cerberus had not eviscerated into demi-husks they had trained well. "As you have successfully completed all tests, you have been approved for transfer, effective immediately. You will be returned your belongings on the processing area." A curt nod. "Congratulations, ensign Tanaka. I hope not to see you around here again."

"Yes sir, thank you sir." She returned the greeting as politely, turned right mechanically, and walked out of the hall. Not one of her erstwhile comrades looked her go and she knew it. After this day it was unlikely she would meet another of them for years, if ever. Even if their surrender had been accepted and their skills put to use against the Reapers, trust would not come easily, and she expected no less. All in all, she was satisfied with herself, sincerely grateful for the revelations of how her and her comrades had been manipulated first, indoctrinated second, and warped at last into blind weapons, and even more thankful for the chance to set herself straight. Being again Sachiko Tanaka, instead of Prisoner 89241, was the first step in that direction.

She walked into the processing area, where several other former prisoners were being handed gear and belongings. It came as a bit of surprise to see that most of their 'belongings' were their old Cerberus gear, repainted in Alliance colors, but then her mind joined the dots: Cerberus had made it a point to tailor every piece of armor to their intended users, and once they had disassembled each component down to their smallest parts they would hold no secrets for the Alliance. Putting them back together and refurbishing them for their original users to wear was only logical. She walked over to the single vacant counter out of the four, where a clerk had already prepared a couple of large bags etched with her prisoner number. She was made to sign a paper form with her own hand -an anachronism to be sure-, then to countersign it with a palm scan, and finally told to proceed to the reception hall where she would meet the officer in charge of her. All this was done within view of a score of heavily armed and armored Alliance soldiers, who watched the former inmates go with empty faces.

There were six different groups of people, each one composed by an officer in uniform and an escort of two marines. One of these officers was looking right at her; she needed no further encouragement and walked over to the woman. She was, if anything, tough-looking, and had been apparently a line soldier before being commissioned as an officer and working her way up the ranks to become a lieutenant commander. "Ensign Tanaka reporting as ordered, ma'am." She saluted without putting any of her large bags down.

She nodded approvingly. "At ease, ensign." Her name tag read VISCONTI. "I am required by regulations to restate all the terms of your probationary enrollment to you." That was the prelude for a small briefing that lasted some good four minutes. Her past as a Cerberus operative would not be brought up again; completion of the Hades program had cleared her record. She did not have to say that her custodians had a high concept of her. She did not have to say either that being officially cleared did not imply acceptance. Performance would garner her respect. She would be paid the standard salary of any other Alliance ensign. Out of respect for the proficiency she had exhibited she would be allowed to use her old gear when deploying, at least until functional Alliance replacements were made available. "Do you need any of this repeated, ensign?"

"No, ma'am."

"Any questions?"

"No, ma'am."

Visconti was reassured by the firmness of the replies. However much it grated her and her crew to bring ex Cerberus men on board, the briefings had not lied. They appeared to be excellent material. It remained to be seen if their experiences would get in the way. If anything, it would build rivalries within her crew, which would spur struggles to outdo one another. If this Tanaka girl was smart she would surround herself with people who trusted her, with whom to fight off the heat that would inevitably come her way, though given the reports she had on the former Phantom probably anyone who tried to work her to the ground would be in for a nasty surprise. Someone would try -many among her crew bore grudges against Cerberus and would seize the opportunity to settle the scores, even if with an old operative of theirs-, but they would have to work for it. "Good. Follow the marines. They'll show you to your quarters in the ship. Dismissed."

* * *

A door hissed open and Val'Akar walked into the bridge of his ship. It felt empty. There were barely five crew on duty there: the chief officers for engineering, gunnery, intelligence and navigation - and a single geth, the only one active on a walking platform on the whole cruiser.

Still, he had managed to retain a surprisingly large part of his original crew. Almost every quarian had chosen to try their luck on Rannoch, but barely half of them had managed to cope with the experience. Accustomed as they were to the cramped spaces of their starships, many could not adjust to the vastness of their homeworld, and had thus returned to the Flotilla.

The geth on the bridge was a testament to the changing times. He was not the only geth on the vessel. Almost all of them inhabited the ship's systems, the suits of its quarian crew, even their tools and handheld weapons, and could download and upload themselves to and from almost any piece of hardware with processing power enough. Hundreds of synthetic combat platforms were in cold storage, waiting to be activated if needed. Save this one, who was the face of its kind, its representative before their creators. And, in recognition to the one who had made such existence possible, it called itself 'Legion.'

He had not to ask for news. He knew there were not any. The geth had performed a flawlessly precise job when deploying their screen of fighters and escorts in a ring around the dormant relay. After the titanic clash over Earth it was not a surprise anymore that geth and quarians had made their peace and were working together, but the synthetics were still feared all over the galaxy - and their platforms were expendable.

"Akar-commander," the geth saluted.

"Legion," the quarian replied. He still had misgivings about the synthetics, but he had grudgingly admitted they could have killed them all dozens of times over since the standoff at Rannoch and they had not yet done so.

"You are troubled, Akar-commander?"

A grunt. "You know exactly what I'm thinking."

The geth bent its lantern-head sideways. It was almost comical, to watch the synthetic trying to emulate behaviors of organic races. "That assumption is inexact, Akar-commander. I can infer your prejudices still warn you not to trust me or my people, but your exact thoughts on the matter are lost to me."

_As if a piece of software could be considered a person._ He was wrong, of course. A piece of terran art had challenged the nature of intelligence by simply dubbing it a 'network of electrical impulses decoded and interpreted by the brain.' _If them, newcomers as they are, could come up with such a conclusion..._ "Close enough, Legion. We have fought your kind for decades. Learning to put all that behind to work side to side with you is hard." He saw nods of approval from his chiefs. "Let us not get into another philosophical debate now and focus on the task at hand."

The task was boring. They were holding station in orbit around the mass relay. Their mission was simple: preventing anyone from getting close to the device until they were relieved by T'Loak's force. But, with almost every challenging aspect of running a starfaring vessel now handled by sentient geth software, the crews that had once put all of their energies into the task were now reduced to simply monitoring that the synthetics did their job right. Only the persisting paranoia made their work difficult: it was diabolically demanding to keep track of every single operation performed by a geth program. Their pace was simply too fast to be kept up for any reasonable amount of time by someone trying to keep an eye on them. Worse still, his engineering officer had reported that the geth were steadily decreasing their operating speed - no doubt trying to assuage the doubts of their creators. That was not good either. Having a ship running below optimal capacity because of rampant paranoia was not healthy.

For the time being, that concern was in the back burner. His mission was a first, a test to see how well creators and creations worked shoulder to shoulder. The results would be digested back on Rannoch. Right now, he had to keep his crew in shape, and so Val'Akar had to organize them into other duties. A part of them had modified the ship's sensor arrays to double as an extreme range surveyor of nearby worlds. Another group was organizing virtual wargames to keep their tactical and strategical skills honed, with some of the geth playing the role of the opposing force. A third one was refitting a few geth fighters for their own use, which was particularly challenging since these had no life support systems to speak of.

Abruptly the holographic representation of his ship on the CIC faded away. "Contact," the navigation chief automatically reported as the hologram pictured their LADAR output. "Salarian escort configuration. Range 31700, bearing 3-3-1." Another display showed a pict-capture of the incoming vessel.

"It's an Eclipse ship," the intel specialist noted. "Mercenaries."

"No other contacts in range..." The gunner's voice trailed away, as if expecting other ships to appear any time soon. "Sir, it's awfully early for Aria's forces to arrive or is it just me?"

"No, you're correct. Open a channel." This was done immediately. "Eclipse vessel, you have entered restricted space. State your intended course and destination." There was no reply. "Legion, send fighters on an intercept course. Have them fire a warning salvo if they try to leave."

"Akar-commander." The geth made no motion, but on the LADAR screen a flight of strike craft was changing course and accelerating towards the intruder.

"Contact is powering up engines, sir," the navigation officer reported.

Val'Akar's orders were to prevent tampering with the relay. He had no standing directives to prevent anyone from discovering it. But a lone mercenary ship, of an agency theoretically under T'Loak's thumb... "Power up the ECM gear. Bring the fighters within range for a hacking attack."_  
_

"Let's just hope they don't have a QEC on board..." the intel specialist commented.

"If that's the case we're blown either way."

Lights flashed on the LADAR hologram as the fighters fired their warning salvo. Then, immediately: "Sir, we're being hailed."

"I'll take it."

A nervous female voice echoed on the speakers: "Cease fire! Cease fire! This is the Eclipse scout _Bayonet_ speaking, hold your fire!"

The quarian commander did not bother to conceal the sneer in his voice. "You could have started with that and save yourself a load of trouble. What's your business here?"

"I-Investigating," the voice stuttered. "We-we were told geth were around and our ship was dispatched to do some recon... we're not very used yet to the, uh, geth working with quarians."

Val'Akar smirked. "Your failure to inform yourself on galaxy-changing events invites pondering, _Bayonet. _Power down your engines and prepare to be boarded. Nice and easy and nobody will get hurt." It was pointless to threaten anything further. Another picket of strike craft was now converging on the vessel's position. "Prepare a geth platoon. I want that ship inspected through and through."

It escaped no one on that bridge that the search was probably useless, but the geth spoke nonetheless: "Akar-commander, the odds of a lone ship being here merely on rumors are despreciably low. Someone else knew of this."

"That is what we're going to find out. Who knew."


	2. New blood

Alliance dreadnought SSV Aconcagua

It could have been a lot worse, Sachiko concluded. In fact, she was a bit surprised it was not the case. The marines had led her through the ship to a three-member cabin she was to share with another ensign. The accommodations were quite comfortable, not at all like the spartan cell where she had resided aboard the Bataan: two small desks, the bunks -she had been allotted the upper one-, several storage closets, a VI interface, and a few other amenities.

One of those closets she immediately filled up with her Phantom outfit and its servicing kit, wondering why she had not been required to leave it in the armory along with her sidearm and monomolecular-edged blade, especially when considering the pulse projector on the palm of its glove was a far deadlier weapon than her pistol. Mayhaps it did not work anymore... that would be bad news. She would rather know now whether that was the case. She powered on the armor and ran the diagnostics routine: everything still functioned, up to and including the projector and the cloaking field generator. That only added to her befuddlement.

A few discrete knocks on the door. Sachiko's first impulse was to curse the timing; she did not like to be seen handling her Cerberus gear, new colors or not. _A superior officer? No, they would come in without calling._ "Hold a minute, please!" she asked as she powered down her suit and stored it. Then she opened the door:

"Oh... it's you." The green eyes immediately grew wary. It was her roommate, she realized, a raven-haired girl of her same rank. She was taller and bulkier than her. "I am Ensign Eugenia Ortiz and will be sharing the cabin with you."

"Sachiko Tanaka," she introduced herself. "Excuse me, I was just storing my gear." She gestured at her half-disassembled luggage. Ortiz appraised her new roommate: a bit over five feet, lean figure, black hair scrupulously tied on a single queue, large sloe Asian eyes. Her body language proclaimed superlative self-confidence and self-knowledge. _Is this the Cerberus girl?_

"It's okay," Ortiz dismissed the comment. She was obviously unsettled by her and remained in silence a bit while Tanaka stored her gear.

She did not turn her head to say: "Ortiz, if I make you uncomfortable, best you tell me here and now."

The Alliance officer did not expect that. Not hostile words, not friendly either. "Yes, you do, but I'm hoping to learn better than that."

Now Tanaka looked at her. "Good to know. Now, tell me what's bothering you."

"I know about you and what you are."

She shrugged. "Not another freshly graduated ensign such as you, I understand."

A surge of indignation sparked briefly in Ortiz's eyes. It had not been said unkindly, Tanaka was merely stating the obvious. "It's true, this is my first tour." She briefly hesitated, but Sachiko's eyes encouraged her to continue: "I don't want a roommate I can't trust. I want to know about you."

"Me neither. So ask away."

Ortiz shuffled uncomfortably. "Why did you join them?"

The former Phantom had plenty of experience answering that question. The answer came easily to her now. "I was young and angry. The Council treated us with contempt and intervened in our affairs when it suited them. Nobody would help us but themselves. So I wanted to take matters into my own hands." She locked the closet. "That was before Sovereign raided the Citadel. And even after we had to come to their rescue we were left to our own, colonies started vanishing without a trace... felt kind of vindicated for joining when that started happening."

Ortiz walked in. Sachiko's words echoed many thoughts she had entertained while younger. Her own uncle had died on the first battle for the Citadel. "And then?"

"And then I got the most of my training. We were to take the fight to them, a special task force was being put together for that."

"You fought the Collectors."

Tanaka shook her head. "By the time I was ready they had already been dealt with."

_Had I been a few years older and bolder..._ she would have followed Tanaka's path. Still she could not empathize with her. "And what happened to you?"

"We went through another round of training. They pulled less punches." Her voice grew quieter. "I don't recall much. We were indoctrinated, that thing Reapers did to control their minions." She turned her head to face her. "Anything else you wanted to know?"

The rookie ensign thought she caught a glimpse of anger as Tanaka stonewalled... or was it regret? In either case, she had told a great deal to be the first time they met. _Take it slow,_ she told herself. "Thank you for telling me."

Is she supposed to keep an eye on me, Sachiko wondered. She did not know, but had to be on guard nonetheless. Honesty would be no defense on this extended trial she was about to face. Not that she was innocent. There was blood on her hands that would never come off, indoctrinated or not. The Hades program had been no penance for all the Alliance and Citadel people she had gutted. On the contrary, it had exacerbated the burden of those dead on her soul.

_Probably that's why they released me. _Indoctrination had suppressed her free will, but not her conscience.

She wanted to be trusted, but begging would not do there.

"Anytime, Ortiz." She stood up and looked at the alarm clock. It was set on Earth time, and read 18:52. She was not supposed to be on duty until the next day at 5 AM. She reached for a small bag. "I'm going for a workout. Need to tire myself out."

She left her roommate to dwell on her words and walked into the narrow corridors, making her way to one of the PT barracks. She had half-expected to be glared at by the crew, but to most she was just another ensign. There were knowing looks at her still, but those were few. Whenever that was the case she held the glare, never casting her eyes aside, until she walked past the onlooker. She could not show weakness, not even on as simple a challenge as that.

She arrived at the PT barracks, picked the third treadmill out of the six, and started running. The marine to her left regarded her with a single glance. "Evenin'", he greeted casually.

"Good evening." Her instincts told her to keep her guard up. Her black eyes scanned the large room. About fifteen other men and women were exercising themselves. There was the usual assortment of weight lifting machinery, plus treadmills, bicycles, and other similar devices used for fitness. Beyond these, a large mat used for hand-to-hand combat training, and a boxing ring where a man and a woman were exchanging blows, a small group of onlookers on a side.

She had ran perhaps for some twenty-odd minutes when the onlookers cheered. She felt a twinge of curiosity-but before looking there she glanced all around her -the marine to her left had turned his head towards the noise and briefly glanced at her curiously- and only then did she look. The male fighter was on the floor, struggling to stand up. She allowed herself a look at the victorious woman: blonde, about five-seven, in good shape. Her shrewd eyes noted that most of the men around looked at her with guarded desire. She was good-looking indeed, with a pleasing oval-shaped face, ample bosom and shapely legs. Sachiko briefly wondered if the man had let her win.

At that same time three men entered the barracks. Immediately their eyes were fixated upon her. She recognized them: they all had stared at her on her way there. She was instantly on guard.

The bald, black man on the middle of the trio hollered hoarsely, keeping his smoldering brown eyes on her all the while: "Hey Johanssen! Did you know who's our newest recruit?"

The blond woman helped her opponent stand and dried her face with a towel. "There's a batch of rookies, I heard. Why?"

"We got a real hotshot running on that tread here. One of the Cerberus vets."

At once everyone looked at her. She kept running, dismissing how stifling the atmosphere had become - but, again, her eyes never wavering from the black marine's.

"So what, Fisher? You afraid of getting 'indoctrinated' too?" A few amused grunts echoed the comment as she pronounced the words with venom in her voice. There had been an implicit challenge for her on that. She knew how this would end - Fisher and Johanssen would keep pretending to exchange insults with each other, while at the same time whipping the onlookers closer and closer to a frenzy where she would be ganged up on with no chance of winning without killing someone.

She had to put an end to that, right now. She stepped down from the treadmill and in one single, deceivingly fluid motion, stabbed for Fisher's throat with her fingers - stopping half an inch away. The man was shocked with surprise. "You have something to say, let's hear it. Up there." Without expecting a reply she worked her way through the barracks to the ring, leaving the rest of the marines slightly surprised because of her bravado. She climbed atop the ring and waited.

Johanssen looked at the Cerberus veteran with grim amusement as Fisher approached. If anything, she had balls, issuing such a challenge and walking among all of Fisher's comrades and friends without so much as a glance. She appraised her, much like Ortiz had done before, then glanced at the black marine with well concealed concern: _This time he's bit off more than he can chew... or hasn't he..._

It took Tanaka a brief glance to dissect Fisher on the spot: a strong, fit adversary, but one not in her league skill-wise, and partly blinded by hatred as well. Angry. That was how she liked her foes. It made them all the more prone to making mistakes.

"Just because I'm nice, I'm stopping on first blood." Fisher spoke the taunt with a smirk. His friends echoed him:

"Show her, Fisher!"

"Kick her Cerberus ass!"

Her eyes were glacial. "I'm not nice." That said, she advanced, taunting his fists. She dodged one punch, then another, and parried a third blow with a flick of her wrist. She had barely tensed. Fisher stepped back, aware now that his adversary was skilled beyond her deceptively small frame, then tried a new tack. Another burst of punches, which she easily dodged and parried, then crouch and go for a headbutt-but she was not there. His attack met thin air, leaving him exposed to her riposte, but she did nothing. Other than smirking.

"Stand still, you bitch!" he snarled angrily. Another punch she parried aside. Her smile grew broader, driving him all the more furious-

-until after another missed punch she slid past him, smashing his neck with the rigid side of her hand. The impact choked the breath out of him. Before he could recover she already had his head on a vise, and slowly dragged him down to the ground. He struck the floor with his open hand, conceding the fight, but the grip grew tighter. He kept hitting the floor, now with both hands: "You win! You win, alright-?" he coughed as he grasped for breath.

Then she let him go. He lay on the floor, retching for a few seconds, while she watched him like a hawk for signs of treachery. At the same time her ears were on her surroundings. The only sounds came from the working machinery on the ship. Nobody moved.

As soon as Fisher looked up again, she held out an open hand. "Never do that again," she admonished him. "You let your anger get the best of you. And challenging an adversary blindly will get you killed." Only now did she flex her biotic muscle. Her eyes and body went ablaze with blue fire. Everyone jumped back in surprise.

With a yank she helped Fisher stand. The man's eyes were dour but humble. "You're right, miss. You should have kicked my ass."

Sachiko shook her head. "And gain what? Someone who'd slit my throat at the first chance? I'm not exactly liked."

* * *

Delta 9 relay

"We caught an interloper on the outer perimeter," Val'Akar was saying. "An Eclipse escort-class vessel."

"I don't remember telling Eclipse to scout ahead." Given the slow cadence and low tone of her words, the quarian knew someone around Aria would be quaking with dread. He could picture what would happen next: she would demand -and get- the head of whomever had let the data slip out of the net. If anything, the asari was ruthless. There were advantages to that approach.

"I supposed not. I'm forwarding the profiles of the ship and the crew to you. We have them all into custody."

"Surprisingly efficient on your part, I have to say." T'Loak changed subjects: "I've already dispatched most of my fleet. They shouldn't be long. It should take them about three standard days to get there."

"Good to know. We will stand around." He cut communication without further words. There was little love lost between each other, just a mutual -and grudging- respect for each other's qualities.

"When she realizes we're building our station here she won't like it," the engineering chief cautioned.

"She can bitch and whine all that she wants," Val'Akar retorted gruffly. "And she won't mean a single bit of it. On the contrary, she'll see it as an ideal excuse to shift the burden of watching over this place to us." The captain was angry. That the Admiralty had gone forward and committed resources and permanent manpower to this place galled him.

Of course, anybody willing to trust the chief smuggler of the Terminus Systems with such a responsibility for long would be out of his mind, but why had his race stepped first to asume the 'mantle of guardianship' was beyond his understanding. Perhaps they wanted colonization rights for the first habitable world found on the other side of the relay, if it led to unknown regions of the galaxy? _We can't even settle half of Rannoch!_ Mineral rights? It made no sense. Their number was so tiny when compared to other races. The systems encompassing Haestrom, Uriyah and other former colonies held enough untapped mineral resources to keep the quarian needs covered for decades. Exploration rights? Possible. If there were Prothean ruins on the other side of the relay and there still was salvageable tech there, then it probably was worth the expense... but it was a huge gamble. Prothean ruins like the huge compound of Ilos and the librarium on Mars were very few and far between across the galaxy.

The thoughts chased each other back and forth on Val'Akar's head. "Legion," he asked on impulse, "give me some motives for the geth to build a station here."

"Acknowledged." The synthetic remained silent for a few seconds, no doubt gathering input from its fellow geth onboard the ship. "Primary reason for building an installation would be to secure local space from unknown threats that could jump to this side of the relay, though given its currently deactivated status that reason is invalid. An alternative would be to have an outpost in place to ease exploration of unknown space beyond this relay." The android turned to face him. "Akar-commander, from what we have gathered from creator society and other organic nations, political and economical reasons could come into play, though in your particular case those reasons are also moot. There is plenty of room and resources in worlds within current creator space boundaries to expand. Some considerations could arise, though, if discovered worlds or resources were to be used for leverage."

_Nothing new there._ The answer had been delivered quickly and efficiently, and for some reason that irritated Val'Akar some more. He hated not to understand.

One of the consoles beeped. The intelligence officer tapped his omni-tool, and then: "Sir? I have a ciphered communiqué from the Admiralty."

"Forward it."

"It's not verbal, sir. It's a heads-up. The Citadel is dispatching a Spectre with the Admiralty's blessing. They'll be here within two days."

_The Citadel?_ "I recall there is no Council yet appointed."

"You're correct, sir. Terran admiral Hackett holds executive powers with the consent of the Council races."

"So this means this Hackett is sending a Spectre."

"I would not say so that quickly, sir," the officer cautioned. "The Spectres respond to the Council and only to them. Even with terrans having played such a critical role on the Reaper War, I do not see the rest of the Citadel races agreeing to invest a single human with all the prerogatives of the Council. Probably the decision was taken by mutual consent."

"Identity?"

"Unknown, sir. It's not specified on the message. They only said the Spectre would be cleared by the Admiralty to conduct its business here."

"A goodwill gesture to get back into the Council's good graces," Val'Akar mumbled. The idea rankled him. The Council had left them to their own when the geth had rebelled. _But that was a mistake of our own making,_ Val'Akar forced himself to remember, a gross violation of the codicils regulating AI development. _And our attitude when they became sentient was no better. _He still remembered the vid-feeds Tali'Zorah had ordered distributed, feeds recovered by Shepard upon hacking into a geth mainframe. Watching that had been a gut-wrenching ordeal. That was not at all as they had been told. Many uncomfortable questions had been asked after that day.

By the corner of his eye he saw Legion's lantern-head bobbing quickly, in almost birdlike fashion. Then: "Akar-commander, we have discovered a quantum-entanglement communicator aboard the Eclipse ship."

Val'Akar swore and turned to the navigation officer: "Bring the whole task force to a level 2 general alert. Battle stations."

"Yes sir!" At once alarm sirens began blaring all over the ship.

The commander asked Legion, "Condition of the device?"

"Poor, but recoverable, Akar-commander. We should be able to reconstruct the information sent."

"Good news for a change. Excellent work, Legion."

"Someone went through a lot of expense to outfit such small a ship with a QEC," the intel chief noted.

"And that someone is aware of the forces we have here." _But who would that be? And who could be interested so on this relay?_

_Someone who, unlike us, is hungry for unsettled worlds and raw materials... _he did the math quickly in his brain. The Council races had plenty of reason to want more minerals, with all the reconstruction efforts going on, but were also the ones most aware of the hazards involving an unknown relay. The batarians were down to a fraction of their old strength, and whatever remained of their fleet could not hope to stand up to the quarian forces. The krogans, while hungry on both counts, had but a meagre flotilla of transports and lightweight escorts, again not a challenge for them. The volus had little reason to worry as a turian protectorate. About the hanar and drell, he knew little, but did not believe that they could pose a threat either. He went over it all again, knowing he had missed something...

_I'm looking at it from too high a perspective. Who would be capable of this kind of sleight of hand? _

_Asari, salarians and terrans._

* * *

The Citadel

"And so," Hackett pronounced tiredly as he took seat behind the desk, "here we are again, picking people for an assignment that can potentially change the galaxy."

Mikhailovich sat on the opposite side. "Anderson and Udina picked Shepard."

His superior grumbled. "You know what I mean. Don't get uptight with me on the specifics." He tapped his secure tablet computer. "How did Hades turn out?"

"So far, satisfactorily. We have some encouraging reports. It was a good move to have them undergo the program. I'm getting some rumbles from officers..."

"That was to be expected. No career officer would welcome an ex Cerberus with open arms."

Mikhailovich grunted an agreement. "It's official, then? You want to send a team through the Delta 9 relay?"

"We have to. Who knows what kind of abomination could come through it. We have to be able to keep it secure from the other side at least." A small pause. "And I want to put the results of Hades to test." Immediately he saw a flash of disagreement on Mikhailovich's face. "We have to do this sometime. Recruiting troops that cannot be trusted only means further expense. And all Hades subjects acquitted themselves against Reaper forces."

"I know, I know, you're absolutely right. There's about ten names worth looking out on that dossier."

"Who'd you tap for evaluating them?"

"As experienced an N7 operative as we can get." _Excluding Shepard._

_Of course._ "That would mean Vega."

The doorbell rang. "Come in!"

A lieutenant came in and saluted. "Excuse me for interrupting, sir, but a high-priority message for you just came in." She walked over to the desk, handed over the secure tablet, saluted again, and left.

Hackett let the device scan his retina and DNA and quickly digested the information. "We'll have to move quickly with this. The quarians stationed on the relay picked up a snooper. Someone else's on the know."

His subordinate's eyes hardened. "We had a leak."

A grunt. "Or there was a leak on T'Loak's side."

"I hate having to rely on a criminal kingpin for this."

"I'm not going to have this argument again," Hackett stated with finality. They had already argued over her, but Shepard had been right: she was merciless, kept everyone working for her on a tight leash - and since almost every business on the Terminus Systems went through Omega, this meant most of that region was somewhat stable. Not to mention that bringing her down would be extremely hard and detrimental to the safety of neighboring Citadel space on an equal degree. Nobody wanted a war of succession to erupt on Terminus. "Order Vega here ASAP. And get me a QEC link with Shepard."

* * *

Elsewhere on the Citadel, Miranda Lawson was savoring a mint tea as she sat next to a table overlooking the Presidium commons, studying (or was it 'studying'?) some information on her tablet. Her expert eyes needed no concealment behind shades to remain a mystery. They revealed nothing. Not even a flicker of interest as they dissected every bystander and passerby that pursed the kiosks of the markets to her left or conversed on other tables around her.

A great deal of these were humans, which was of course only obvious given the new location of the Citadel, though citizens of all races and breeds swarmed the commons. There were no traces of the damage sustained on the assault her former agency had staged, nor of the methodical 'sanitization' -there was practically no other term to describe it- carried on by the Reapers, other than a series of plaques and memorials, one of which was almost directly in front of her. The dynamic weather systems of the Citadel were now tuned to a pleasant dusk-like intensity, which would fade into a starry night in the course of the next two hours or so. Sitting there, in such a mundane environment, she would appear thus to be just another woman enjoying some rest, if not for the heads that turned constantly to feed on such elegant beauty.

She was tired of it. Last time the Normandy had been on leave here she had had yet another opportunity to gauge how people reacted to other, less magnetic members of its crew. Chambers and Trayvon, the yeomen, had merrily shopped their way all over the place without so much as a couple of glances, which they merited in any case because they had good looks of their own. Even so, they were, in a way, nobodies. It was not Miranda's case. Her charm was on a league all of her own, and the people that continuously stole looks at her were constant reminders of that fact.

A charm that had yielded her little. Taylor had moved on to form a life with a former Cerberus scientist; she was godmother to their first son. Shepard and T'Soni had a daughter of their own. Both children were cruel reminders of joys she would never have.

Her current post as executive officer aboard the Normandy, contrary to thought, had done a little to soothe that pain. She could not blame her former lover for rekindling a relationship with the asari. She had always regarded Liara as a giant of a person that had preserved her sensitivity and empathy despite all the reasons her incredible job and the crumbling galaxy around her gave her to surrender to cynicism. And Liara knew of her respect, and her pains. It was impossible not to; careful as Miranda was to keep her affairs to herself, she had had no illusions about her capability to conceal them from the very Shadow Broker.

And Liara had confided on her for help with her daughter, almost to the point of making a surrogate mother out of Miranda in the process. She had allowed herself to be roped into it, knowing that Liara was aware of her longing for such an experience and hardly believing her -and Shepard's?- incredible generosity. For she knew the asari was willingly sharing motherhood with her, someone she had once seen as a rival.

Would that also imply that she acknowledged her affections towards her spouse? Miranda dared not ask the question, however strong her attraction -no, _feelings,_ she corrected herself- towards Shepard; she feared that doing so would shatter it all. She was absolutely certain Liara could read her like a book, but made no comment on the issue, even if the limits between them were growing increasingly blurry.

Then her eyes caught a drell appearing from a corridor and stepping into the promenade, and she automatically boxed her emotions into a small compartment. Work was at hand. The reptilian alien walked casually up to her, and sat on the opposing chair without preamble.

"Found anything you liked?" She asked with half a smile.

"Some beautiful black pearls," he replied, casually producing a small jewelry container from a pocket of his coat.

"Those must have been expensive."

"Europa-grown pearls are." The sequence complete, they both relaxed, though neither showed it. She approved mentally of the choice. The drell was lean, wiry-looking; his eyes were piercing even from beyond the dark shades he was wearing. It was to be expected from a shooter. They made innocuous conversation for a while, measuring each other's worth in the process.

Jondar Krayt had been told by Bau, the salarian Spectre whose retinue of agents he had managed for some time now, that the former Cerberus second-in-command would be briefing him for this mission. It had been a rare opportunity to gauge her skills; even if her file described the gene-tailored biotic as a 'brilliant officer with single-minded dedication to her job', Miranda Lawson had been shadowed by her boss first and her former lover next, and been successful at remaining inconspicuous. Extraordinarily so, he judged, given the looks she attracted. Those did not escape him. The nuances of human sex appeal were not completely lost on him, but he had no such inclinations.

After a glance and a tacit agreement they both stood up and made their way to a parking lot. She jumped first into her aircar and let him up on the passenger side. Two minutes of driving and they were lost into the massive traffic of the Citadel; then, she merely tossed him her secure tablet. He quickly scanned it.

"I'm to be the Spectres' agent sent to this new relay?" he asked matter-of-factly.

A curt nod on her part. "Bau has had you cleared you for promotion as a full-fledged Spectre pending your success on this assignment. He explicitly wanted me to tell you that."

Krayt's eyes returned to the tablet. It was unheard of, for Spectres to commission a new one by themselves. But an entire standard year without a proper Council appointed was also unheard of, however contrary to common sense it appeared. "Are the quarians supposed to lend an agent of their own as well?"

"There's been no word on that, but it's quite likely. They have a stake of their own on the place." That last line just had to be wrong. What could the quarians possibly need from an unexplored region of space was beyond her understanding, but she did not need to know the reason to do her job. If anything, that was a bait to test his reaction.

In this case it was merely a shrug. "No intelligence at all on what's on the other side of that relay."_  
_

"Not a hint."

"It merits some thinking... if the Reapers were there before us then they have already sweeped the place clean of intelligent life."

Miranda had already pondered on the issue, of course. The question she could not answer was quite another: _if they were there, why is it turned off? _They had never bothered to conceal their tracks, so inevitable had they considered their triumph. _Do I share this with him?_ She had not been given any instructions otherwise, and besides, he would see everything there was to see by himself when -and if- he jumped to the other side. "This is personal speculation, but I believe there's a chance they missed this place."

Krayt glanced askance at her, then went carefully in his mind through the information on the tablet computer. "Because it's not active."

An approving nod. "Correct."

He quickly reviewed the data Bau had made available to him concerning the history of the mass relays. "Could it be that this relay was not constructed by the Reapers?"

Now it was Miranda's turn to look at him by the corner of her eye. "Interesting. Care to ellaborate?"

"The Protheans constructed a prototype relay on their own on Ilos," he explained, alluding to the Conduit. "What if that's not the only relay they built?"

She slightly frowned. "That seems unlikely to me. The Conduit was built while the Reapers were harvesting the Protheans. How could they emplace another relay in the void of space, so far away from Ilos?"

The drell bowed his head, conceding that his theory had holes. "Unlikely, but not impossible. We only learned of the Conduit from the Ilos installation. And then your commander rescued a live Prothean on Eden Prime." _There is only so much we know,_ Krayt was implying.

Miranda had to agree. "It's worth giving some thought," she spoke quietly.


	3. Groundwork

The Citadel - Human embassy

His subordinates admired Fleet Admiral Steven Hackett for being an almost immutable bulwark, whose early reputation as a stolid, steel-nerved and shrewd command officer had grown to legendary proportions in the wake of the near-impossible victory over the Reapers. He had never expected his interim leadership of most of the civilized races in the galaxy to last past the battle for Earth, but he had had no choice but to accept continuing to play that role upon being proposed by none other than the Turian Hierarchy, and voted into it by his own people and the Asari Republics.

Early on in his career, the young Buenos Aires native had learned that when people looked up to you for decisions it paid to seem always determined and confident, even when sometimes you had next to no clue about what to do. Fear and doubt were contagious, the more dangerous the further up the command chain. He had not expected that reality to translate so seamlessly into government life, and that was a good thing, for privately he was a man past exhaustion. His stewardship of Citadel space had been expected to last until new councillors were appointed. A whole year had passed and Council governments had infuriatingly dawdled on the issue.

On this, Hackett was partly victim to his own success. He had drawn upon the advice of experts of all races, appointing a volus financist as chief economic advisor, enlisting a turian general and a krogan chieftain to serve as military counselors, recruiting a career asari diplomat to help normalizing relations between races and relying on reports from the Shadow Broker to complement the Alliance's own intelligence gathering agencies. At the same time, he had taken pains not to abuse the prerogatives invested upon him, recognizing the Spectres' independence and loyalty only to a constituted Council, which obviously he was not. It had not been a smooth ride -many issues that had been overlooked in light of the urgent threat posed by the Reapers had surfaced now-, but he had, in his own eyes, been moderately successful.

That the rest of the Council races recognized that by taking well past their time to appoint his replacements rightly angered him. He had never wanted to be a president, for that he actually was, despite his uniform, decorations and sidearm. He had actually taken up to wearing a sidearm to remind people of the fact that he was a soldier, not a public service officer, no matter how strongly the galaxy seemed to strive to put him on that place. No matter how well he had adapted to having no one to turn to, to being the ultimate decision maker. It was not a role he wanted. _How was it that Shepard said? Spectres executed policy, they did not formulate it._ He could empathize with the sentiment. _Smart. _

And the VI was about to remind him of all this in a brief few instants. "Admiral?"

"Yes, Avina?"

"Barla Von is here for his appointment."

"Send him in."

The door slid open noiselessly and the dwarf-like alien walked in. "Good morning... Admiral," the volus greeted, his voice punctuated by the hissing of his atmospheric suit.

"Good morning, Von. You must have some news, I assume."

"Yes, well..." A hiss. "News would be a way to describe it."

Someone else would have sighed, closed his eyes, expressed his chagrin in some way or another. Hackett did not. His career had been built on hearing bad news and responding to them. "The salarians?"

One thing that never ceased to amuse the human officer was how some body language was universal, in this case, a nod, though Von's seemed exaggerated and slow. No doubt the suit impaired his motions some. "Dalatrass Talron's deputation arrived... last night, as you know. They conveyed that... the bulk of the dalatrasses opposes the terms of the loan... negotiated for the reconstruction of Altakiril. They were to meet... their turian counterparts today."

His face gave nothing away, but Hackett cursed to himself. Upon choosing to cure the genophage, Shepard had earned the war effort the unflinching loyalty of the finest shock troops he had had the chance to see in battle. The krogans were equally admirable and dread-inspiring. Whenever deployed against the horrors of the Reapers, they had never broken, growing ever fiercer in the face of overwhelming numbers -truly overwhelming numbers, the kind that turned entire army corps into carrion, not the kind that gave room for heroes to be created-, with even small squads turning large engagements around all by themselves. The turians themselves had testified that engagements that had saved millions of lives had been won because of their old enemies.

But he had also earned mankind the undying enmity of an enormously powerful and dynamic race, most of whose assets had survived the Reaper War without serious damage. Their fleets were now the largest and most powerful in the galaxy, with the exception of the quarian-geth combine. They had the largest currency reserves available anywhere. Their scientific ingenuity was almost unmatched. They had resisted his designation as interim sole Councillor, only to be forced to grudgingly accept it on the face of unified opposition from their Council counterparts. On the freshly resumed game for galactic dominance they had all the winning cards - and had started to play them, one by one. With the treasuries of most other races depleted by a war effort they had almost entirely avoided to take part on, granting many loans with plenty of strings attached was an opening move that spoke of an extensively thought strategy and heralded further complications. _  
_

His mind went, unbidden, to his freshman years on the Academy. Even then he had grasped the value of history as a source of data on patterns that repeated themselves. He was reliving his lessons on the aftermath of World War Two, when the United States had financed an extensive reconstruction of Western Europe. The Marshall plan had been conceived, primarily, to halt the spread of advancing communism, though later on it became clear that implementing it had avoided an aftermath similar to that of WWI. Then, the crushing penalties inflicted upon a losing Germany -compounded with the catastrophic economic collapse of 1929- had fueled resentment and extremism resulting in nazism, causing in turn the most devastating conflict on pre-starflight human history.

The situation was not exactly extrapolable, but it was too depressingly similar. The salarians had now taken the place of the post-WWI Entente powers and the post-WWII United States. And so far they seemed poised to make the same mistakes the British-French-Russian combine had made, advanced space-faring race or not. Only the current -and growing- rift between the political class and the senior ranks of their military and science corps made the picture less grim.

Hackett was aware of the dangers inherent to reducing such a scenario to a simple comparison. Over the past year he had went over the position and motivation of the dalatrasses several times. Their antagonism stemmed from the way they viewed the krogans, and he had to salute their long memory. Learning from the mistakes of past generations was an inability humanity struggled with as a whole even today. That a race with slightly over a quarter of the average lifespan of his own wanted to avoid repeating their own errors was beyond reproach, and one way to interpret their currently advantageous position was to describe it as optimal to put into place as many barriers as they could to curb the consequences of Shepard's choice.

Their concern was shared by many others who could not decide, at this point, what the mistake had been in this case - to unshackle the krogans or to distrust the krogans. He was not one of them, but it would take half a century for anybody to be in place to appraise the results.

He had refused to blame his former subordinate for this. Any competent military officer knew that second-guessing battlefield and wartime choices was the luxury of survivors.

"This is not the first time they do it, don't they... Even if that's a turian-salarian affair..."

"...it will probably end up at your doorstep," Von completed.

"Any indications as to what they will demand?"

"They would not part with any clues on... that regard. If I could hazard a guess..."

The human shook his head. "This again? Reneging on our promises to the krogan now will turn them into what they hate them for." On his behalf, Shepard had informed the Urdnot clan, the leading political force in Tuchanka, that colonization rights could be granted only by a full-fledged Council, that so important a decision taken by an interim governor could be challenged on favoritism grounds. To appease their protests he had committed the backing of the Systems Alliance for their petition in writing, had it countersigned by their senior military and civilian authorities, and presented the document to them as proof of goodwill. Even if Wrex had accepted it, that had drawn some fire, as would draw fire again now:

"One of your advisors spoke this word... she said it was vintage. _Realpolitik?_"

He was right, of course. The will of the dalatrasses could not be counterweighted by krogan loyalty alone. "Here's another word for you, Von. Blackmail."

"Ah, yes, I know the term. Very correct, too. Have you... entertained the notion that they could be taking... their time to name a Councillor because of this?"

"It has crossed my mind, but sacrificing one of the most coveted political posts in the galaxy only to satisfy their paranoia is too much. Using the issue of reconstruction funding for political posturing is inadmissible in any case. Avina," he commanded the VI, "call a meeting of the ambassadors for all the Council races at the earliest convenience."

"At once, Admiral," the voice replied.

Von tilted his head slightly sideways. "Simply bullying the salarians into compliance... is not a very harmonious way of settling the issue, Admiral."

"They must be made aware of the dangers implicit on withholding money used to make people's lives wholesome again." A frown. "But you're correct." _And these are merely speakers, not deciders. The only thing I'm going to hear from them are preplanned arguments._ He would have to consult with his intelligence organs for some insight on what he could use to drive the point home. That meant the Alliance's own Intelligence Bureau and the Shadow Broker. "We won't advance on this here, just the two of us. What else was on the list?"

The volus caught the signal and let the issue rest. "There is a petition from the Board of Citadel Businessmen..."

* * *

Delta 9 relay

"This is the cruiser Rathek. You are entering restricted space. Power down your engines and state your intent."

The salarian navigator picked up the call. "This is the Citadel frigate _Victory._ We are here on Council business. Requesting permission to approach."

A few instants later came the reply: "_Victory, _you are cleared for docking on bay two. Transferring you to docking control."

"Acknowledged."

Javik stood on the bridge of his ship, arms crossed over his chest. His four eyes were impassively glued on the LADAR hologram as he studied the quarian-geth forces arrayed around the icon denoting the dormant relay. One cruiser, six frigates, twice that number of escorts and over a hundred fighters. All of the vessels were of geth make, most likely retrofitted to provide life support and amenities for their organic crews. That was quite the show of force. Only the pirate queen T'Loak could muster strength enough to challenge it and he had been informed she was working in tandem with the quarian-geth combine.

And even if treachery on her part was not a possibility to dismiss, the prothean had no reason to doubt her. He had followed her dealings with his old commander, and on occasion had found himself entertaining the notion of how different things could be if their roles were swapped - the brutally ruthless and pragmatic asari in the stead of the sometimes insufferably idealistic human. He had found more in common with her philosophy. The point was moot now, in any case; facts could not be argued with.

His ship surged forward, quickly eating away at the distance to the geth cruiser, and to the dormant relay behind it. The _Victory_ had made her maiden flight some scarce three months before. It was an unique ship in many ways. First and foremost, it flew the Citadel's flag, not belonging to one of the navies under its banner. Second, it was a scaled-down copy of the _Normandy,_ closer in size to the original SR1 vessel that had met its destiny at the hands of the Collectors. Third, it was a testbed for Prothean technologies, most of which had been gleaned from artifacts stored in the Mars and Ilos archives; an example of this was that the _Victory_ was armed with prototype particle beam cannons -similar in principle to the particle rifle that had been retrieved from his own life support pod at Eden Prime-, as opposed to the usual mass accelerators, or the Thanix cannons that were quickly becoming the primary armament of frontline ships of all Council races.

Fourth, and last, the _Victory_ was a reward. Javik had had little attachment for any species in the galaxy, being slow to overcome his prejudices on their primitive development. But, to an extent, he had learned to respect them, backwards as they were, and fought loyally and well, with the cold-blooded rage that could only stem from being the last survivor of a proud and mighty species that had once ruled the stars. And, on triumph, he had nothing to return to, and Shepard had recognized this, while also taking note of his desire to see the sights a galaxy he had contributed to save had to offer.

Thus had the N7 officer pushed plans for this ship through the Citadel government, relying on the vast network of contacts and resources laboriously spun over the course of three years to produce the necessary funds, a feat all the more impressive on a galaxy where every credit had to go for repairing the damage the Reapers had caused. The work that had been put on his command was immediately evident to Javik upon shaking hands with his commander. _Go,_ Shepard had said. _This is for you._

There were, inevitably, some strings attached, but Javik did not mind those. He was someone to act, and the mundane life of an average citizen -which he could never be in any case- would have bored him quickly.

"You believe he would expect us?" he inquired of his executive officer. He was a batarian, of name Orbak. Most of his crew he had picked himself. He knew them better than they themselves did, owing to his ability to read people's memories with naught but a touch. They had all fought bitterly against the Reapers, losing friends, family and even body parts in the process. And, like himself, none of them had anywhere to return to. They belonged to the ship as much as the ship was their home.

The four-eyed humanoid shook his head. "We came right out of nowhere. Omega did not pick us up. No way he could have had an advance warning."

The prothean turned to his yeoman. "Alert our guest. Tell her to be ready." _Most surely she already is._

"Yes sir," the asari acknowledged him.

"Sir, did you notice they did not ask for aseptic protocols?" Orbak noted.

Javik bowed his head. "The geth are helping them on that stead."

* * *

"The _Victory?_" Val'Akar wanted confirmation. He knew of his captain and his legend.

"ID is positive," his intelligence chief replied. "It's a SR1 intelligence frigate. Second ship of her class, after the _Normandy._"

They watched the vessel approach their cruiser, a deceptively tiny and fragile craft next to the bulk of the geth ship. He turned towards the door. "Legion, you have the bridge. I'm welcoming our guests." He exchanged glances with his navigation and gunnery officers. They both nodded imperceptibly at his unspoken command: keep an eye on it.

"Akar-commander," the synthetic agreed.

The exit hatches were close to the bridge. A squad of armed geth was standing in attendance as a token escort as he waited for the doors to open.

When they finally did, the captain of the docking ship came into view. "Ah, captain," Javik saluted. "Thank you for receiving us without warning." He offered a hand.

Val'Akar shook it. He knew his helmet would obscure whatever gesture escaped his rigid control, but he was amazed nonetheless at seeing a living, breathing prothean. A testimony of a bygone era. "It's, actually, a pleasure to welcome you aboard my ship," he replied, with a courteousness that would have done him good as a politician - except that it was true.

Javik gestured at his companion. "This is Professor Nefara Cirron, university of Serrice. She has come to take a first look at the relay."

The quarian shook hands with her, as well. "I've read your work, professor." Nefara Cirron was a scientist married to her passion, and that passion was archaeotech. She had published what little her government had allowed her on scientific journals, some twenty-two articles over a span of seventy years. That most of her work was still heavily guarded by the Asari matriarchy was not a secret either, and it had to be good: her available material was important read for anyone wishing to work with prothean relics.

Cirron smiled. "That's something one always wants to hear."

The quarian guided them over to the officers' ward room over the ship, the geth in escort. Javik was not interested. He had been inside a geth dreadnought a year before. "Ms. Cirron, how do you find working side to side with a living relic?"

A short laugh. "I'm no longer blind with elation. Javik can be quite cool when he wants to." _Which means he is most of the time,_ she thought but did not add. Not that she blamed him, being as he was a galactic celebrity of sorts.

"How come you were so quick to arrive here?"

"The good doctor was close by... relatively speaking, that is. And the _Victory_ is very fast."

"So I hear. One of our number flew with commander Shepard on the original SR1."

Javik nodded. "Your admiral Zorah is an old comrade of arms of mine." Val'Akar had to know that.

"Oh?" The quarian pretended to be startled.

The prothean's eyes did not change. "Along with commander Shepard, we stormed the geth dreadnought that was tearing your fleet to pieces back on Rannoch." Watching the Normandy's captain evict Han'Gerrel for ordering fire on the ship while they still were aboard had been immensely satisfying._  
_

"Ah, yes, I remember now. A regrettable impulse, that of Admiral Gerrel. Shepard's reaction was well deserved."

"What became of him, if I may ask?"

"He retired shortly after the battle for Earth." The -arguably- selfless attitude of the geth after the war, compounded with the information about geth history Tali'Zorah had ordered distributed, had triggered an uncomfortable soul-searching among the quarians as a whole. "Many decisions he took and some of his views made him rather... unpopular."

Javik had digested that information as well. "He had the best of reasons." The prothean believed that wholeheartedly. The Reaper invasion had found his own species in the midst of a conflict with a synthetic race.

Val'Akar did not know that, of course. "You believe so?"

"Our own experience with synthetics was a bad one, captain." He had reflected on those ancient days so many times now that the memories came to mind unbidden. "But they struck first. It is not your case." _And even so, had I been you, I would have destroyed them to their last._ He took care to conceal that thought from his face.

The quarian exhaled slowly. "It was poorly handled, that's true."

Word had been passed quickly over the ship: _the Prothean is here._ That did not mean everyone was going to drop what they were doing, but those who were on the officers' lounge welcomed the visitors with a greeting and went about their business - while at the same time keeping their eyes glued on Javik. He had grown used to that attention, and what had once been something uncomfortable now he straight-out ignored.

"What kind of foods can you eat?" Val'Akar asked as they sat on a table. "I don't want to poison you by mistake."

Javik allowed himself a rare smile. "I can accept a drink of yours, captain. You need not concern yourself on the issue."

"That's a relief." He turned to Cirron apologetically. "You'll have to excuse us, ma'am. We have no levo-protein foods to speak of aboard."

Nefara smiled in thanks. "Don't worry, I can go for a few hours without food."

Val'Akar sent the orderly away for drinks. "How can the quarian be of service?" He asked formally.

"For starters, we could use every pict-capture you've made of the relay," the asari took charge. "Then, little else, other than escort. The _Victory_ has enough computation power for our needs."

"It is not our intention to activate it by mistake," Javik noted. "The good professor's plans are to interface our ship's computers with the relay's and gather information from its systems. With some luck we can ascertain where it leads based on data from internal hardware."

"We do not anticipate that it's going to take long," she added. "The Reapers built them to make it easy for other races to learn how to operate them."

_Making them all that easier to manipulate,_ both Javik and Val'Akar thought. "Very well," the quarian nodded. "The pictures I can give you right away. I would prefer to be reinforced before setting up the link with the relay. We expect to have more ships here within the next 20 standard hours."

Javik bowed his head in agreement. "Your caution is commendable."

* * *

Within an hour, Javik and Cirron were back on the _Victory._ The quarians had outdone themselves keeping the most of their ship's secrets from them, even if Val'Akar and Javik knew that the only new equipment was the extensive life support gear. But it had not escaped to Cirron -she was, on top of a leading archaeotechnology expert, on the Shadow Broker's payroll- that the geth cruiser had had its sensors retrofitted on the field for enhanced planet-scanning. She would notify her sponsor on that account. Perhaps there were resources worth the expense of exploring and exploiting on nearby worlds. A very minor detail if compared to the importance of the enigma that was her supposed reason for being there, but valuable nonetheless.

She had left the prothean -and the many mysteries he surely kept to himself, to her grief- to tend to the business of running his ship and learning whatever his subordinates could tell him of the quarian force that they had not learned on their own, and returned to her quarters. For years she had painstakingly documented every second of her explorations of prothean ruins or work on mass relays, with the intended goal of revisiting any point of her studies by simply inserting the right module on her VI interface.

Mass relays were split into two distinct categories. Every navigator knew this by heart: primary relays allowed for long-distance travel between only two points, secondary relays could send a ship to any other node within a shorter range. The longest recorded jump between two nodes was 14,392 ly long. The difference between both types of relay was imperceptible to the naked eye. Few people knew that it was not the mass of the eezo core that determined whether a relay was primary or secondary. Each core harbored enough potential energy to shoot a dreadnought between galaxies and then some without breaking a sweat. The limitation, it had been believed, resided in the hardware tasked with interrogating the would-be corridor for obstructions and adjusting to compensate. Someone -not her- had calculated the processing power required to complete that task. The staggering values that had resulted could not be corroborated; disassembling a mass relay to take a peek at its internal workings was impracticable for a long list of reasons, not the least of which its resilience.

After decades of literally inching along -again for the best of reasons-, direct research on mass relays had gleaned a few insights on those mysteries. By their very nature, the devices were impervious to measurement via sensors. They were literally stone-cold dead, not emitting anything other than visible-spectrum light. The controversial experiments undertaken by one Dr. Akil Carinii on the Kappa Iota relay had revealed an entire system of control put into place by the protheans -so it was thought then-, which had been given the none too original name of Dark Switches. Their discovery had been almost accidental, clumsy as their manipulation of the relay's controls had been as they tried to have a probe sent through to the Turix star. The fallout of their results having been tainted by faulty data storage had discredited most of her resulting theories and discouraged official agencies from sponsoring further studies. Cirron's own sponsors had thought otherwise and tasked her to put Carinii's work to test. She had consciously chosen not to dwell on the -so obvious as to defy understanding- dangers of the assignment, but rather to be in awe for a while. How powerful the Shadow Broker had to be to make absolutely sure she could do her work on that same relay without fear of discovery?

Calling the results 'astonishing' did them no justice. In fact, little did the galaxy suspect of the potential of the relays, too fearful to toy with forces almost arcane in scope. The first such conclusion had been a confirmation of a theory claiming that longer jumps demanded focusing a relay's processing power on a single route, which did preclude having nodes with the range of primaries and the flexibility of secondaries. That much Carinii had intuited. That the performance of a node's hardware could be configured -and thus, increased or decreased across extremely broad ranges-, he had not. Its range could then be increased to distances the scope of which challenged imagination, its only real condition being that a relay were on the other side of the route to handle the outgoing craft. The only way to explain this was to suppose that the true capabilities of a given node's hardware were several orders of magnitude greater than the demands placed on it by simple tunneling between nodes... Simple, in this case, being enough computing power to handle an entire asari core world's requirements for a decade.

Properly reprogramming the things was a small quirk around which there was absolutely no way. There were only so many relays to go by, all critically important. (Besides, it probably was for the better. Altering the relay network was playing God with the fabric of galactic society.) And for all her work, she still did not know of a way to tell where a relay was targeted towards without it being turned on and synced with its pair.

Nefara Cirron did know, however, how to turn on a dormant relay. The key was on the extensive logs she had so carefully built.

She knew not that Javik had, with as brief a gesture as shaking her hand, learned of all that as well.


	4. Glimpse

Alliance dreadnought SSV Aconcagua

James Vega looked through the window overlooking the large shuttle bay at the mustered soldiers. With the exception of one, they had all been ferried from their respective vessels during the past day, and had been ordered to stand by for inspection.

He could not bring himself to trust them, Hades program or not, Reaper War veterans or not. They had been Cerberus troops. He had killed tens of those in combat. One of their would-be ninjas had almost killed him. One of their assassins had fatally wounded a comrade of his commander. They were traitors, the lot of them, many being former Alliance personnel that had been discharged for one reason or another.

He heard the door open and turned to see a gruff woman with lieutenant commander epaulets. She stood at attention. "Commander. Welcome to the Aconcagua."

He saluted back. "At ease."

Visconti appraised him, recalling the stories that had circulated all over the Alliance fleet about Shepard's crew. So this was the N7 operative that had saved the galaxy by ramming his shuttle against that of an escaping Cerberus agent on Mars. "It's an honor to have you on board, sir."

"Thanks. I wish I had come for sightseeing." He glanced at the waiting soldiers. "You had one here already."

The officer nodded. "Ensign Sachiko Tanaka. Very proficient biotic, close-quarters specialist. On par with our N6s."

They were a diverse crew. Two more of their number had also been Phantoms. One had traveled on the same ship that had taken him to the Aconcagua, and he was an accomplished sharpshooter. Three of them were combat engineers. The remaining four had been company-level officers. He could assemble a squad out of them, however little he enjoyed the idea. "I was going to ask about her behavior, but I think it's a waste of time." _She's not going to be so stupid to blow her cover within days of being released.__  
_

His dislike was plain for her to see. "However much I'd like to find fault with her, sir, she's handled herself well. If anything, I wish our men held themselves to her standards of training. Since her arrival three days ago she has bested eight different close combat instructors." _And not one managed to put a serious challenge, _she did not add.

That was a challenge. If she was like the Phantom that had fought him... she certainly had the same deceivingly small and slender frame. But he could not get her on a ring, not aboard the Aconcagua. Either outcome was undesirable, if for different reasons. "It figures. We ran upon her fellows. They were elite."

Visconti wanted to ask what was all that about, but knew better. "Can we assist you somehow, sir? My CO says our installations are at your disposal." Which meant he could use their training grounds, hazard courses and danger rooms to measure their skill himself.

"Thank you, officer, probably some of that will be needed." He turned towards the door. "Want to join me?"

"Of course, sir."

The doors to the bay opened to allow Vega and Visconti through. A black lieutenant barked, "Commander's on deck!"

All the troopers saluted. Vega noticed the flashes of recognition on the faces of the once-officers. Saluting back took some small effort. "For those of you who don't know about me, I am James Vega. I bring some news for you." He paused and looked them all in the face. Not a muscle moved. _Robots,_ he thought with disgust. "You have a chance to earn your spurs. Brass has ordered me to make a squad out of you people for an assignment. You're all Hades troops. I know what you were put though there. If you prove that you can make it through the next three days, you may have a shot at getting some respect back." Another pause. "Bad news is, you have to prove that to me. And I'm an all-round son of a bitch to please."

* * *

Delta 9 relay - Victory SR1

Javik checked the dispositions for the last time. The quarian-geth cruiser Rathek and three of its escorts stood guard in a circle around the relay. T'Loak's fleet -the ships pristine, save for the removed Cerberus crests- were arrayed on a second line beyond it. The remainder of Val'Akar's fleet comprised the outer circle.

The prothean judged the arrayed forces excellent for protecting the array from being tampered on by interlopers, but marginally adequate for the task of securing the relay against anything that might come through from the other side. The quarian ships, being of geth make, had batteries of medium-range laser weapons that would trounce anything short of a Destroyer-class Reaper, but only three of the terran-patterned ships on the second ring were equipped with Thanix weapons. About the scouts and fighters he preferred not to think about.

"You don't like it, sir." Orbak stood next to him on the bridge. His crew shared Javik's discomfort to a man.

"I do not. But that's what we have. So we'll compensate with smarts for our lack of firepower."

The batarian had to agree with his commander. He had served aboard an Hegemony battlecruiser, and knew that such a force would have been the pride of his superiors. None of them had gone head to head with the synthetic juggernauts that had shot his ship from under his feet.

Reluctantly Javik opened a channel. "This is _Victory._ We are ready to proceed."

"Roger that," a salarian voice replied. "We are standing guard."

"The Rathek task force is standing by, Javik-captain." That had to be their synthetic officer. Javik grimaced.

"Professor," he called Nefara Cirron over on the mainframe room, "we are ready. Proceed."

"Thank you, captain," the asari replied. She turned towards the two junior officers -one a volus, the other a turian- she had painstakingly briefed over the last two hours and assented. Before them, a large hologram depicted the whole relay, with its dormant components painted a dark purple and only a few tiny spots colored in bright pink.

"Powering up tightbeam transmitters," one started mechanically. "Sending interrogation signal now... signal acknowledged."

"Querying for lockdown measures now." The other typed a few commands on her console and waited for a reply. "Lockdown confirmed. Relay status is confirmed as closed."

"Loading up Dark Switch instruction set. Querying for procedure list..." The console turned up a message made up of unfiltered symbols instead of the asari script the routines coded by Cirron translated the output to. "Ma'am, something went awry here."

"Bring it up on screen." Something was different here. The script was what she was used to seeing, but the order was subtly different. "Captain Javik?" She spoke through her omni-tool. "Would you please take a look at something?"

On the bridge, the prothean studied the information that flooded the screen. It was the usual cipher internally used by Reaper hardware to manage its data. Only problem being, it was not arranged according to Reaper patterns. "I'll be down there immediately." He turned to Orbak. "You have the bridge."

"I have the bridge," his executive officer echoed.

"Bring up the complete unfiltered results," Cirron ordered. The command was obeyed instantly. She composed a split image on her display. On the left side, the procedure list for the Dark Switch interface on the Kappa Iota relay; on the right side, the return from the query she had ordered. She ran her comparation routine, even if she recognized at plain sight some of the commands. Only a few lines of the Kappa Iota instructions were missing here, but roughly half of the routines present on this relay were absent on the other one.

"Many discrepancies here, ma'am," the junior turian officer reported unnecessarily.

Her routine labeled each of the known commands on a cipher private only to her: circuit test, query tunnel, align, IFF filtering, secure passage... no recognizable logging retrieval option. _Oh well. _This had not been expected to be easy.

She tapped the IFF filtering command, creating a new window on her display, hoping to glean something about who had been the last one to use this relay. She was familiar with codes used by every modern starfaring species in the galaxy, knew what prothean identification sequences looked like, and had gotten a few close looks at the diabolically complex ciphers used by the Reapers. "Make sure the blocks preventing activation remain in place."

"Yes, ma'am."

Javik arrived. "What have you found out?"

"Logs are corrupted or nonexistent. At least there's no simple way of retrieving them." She pointed at the split-screen now behind the window frame she was currently working on. "There's many more routines here than on the Kappa Iota relay. I can only guess what half of those do."

_So much for experts._ He amusingly recalled one of his first lines to the asari that was his commander's mate... _'so, the asari have finally mastered writing.' It should not be surprising. _As he studied the symbols, he witnessed how the window frame populated itself with more characters. Cirron bent forward, her brow knotted with intrigue. There was a cadence there, it was not mere junk data. "That's... that doesn't match anything I've ever seen."

The prothean knew a few things the asari did not. Some information on the last vessel to use that relay could be obtained from that. "Isolate this," he pointed at a cluster of characters. She did as she was bidden on the spot, then he tapped a few commands on the interface, carefully reordering some of the output. At once they vanished, turned into asari script... "Whatever the last ship was, it had roughly twice the displacement of the asari flagship. And..." some more commands. "...this is the unique identifier of the vessel."

"We should be able to dig directly into the storage units and track down the logs using this..." Cirron opened her mouth in amazement. She turned her head behind her shoulder to look at Javik with huge eyes. He tapped her shoulder -casually touching a bit of exposed skin as he did so- with a knowing smile.

"You know what to do, Professor." He also knew what she would do. It was a great fortune that only Shepard had the Cipher, he reflected contentedly.

The asari scientist got over her initial surprise, still with a smile of bewilderment on her face, and told her aides: "You are relieved now. I can deal with the remaining work myself." They nodded, saluted, and returned to their usual duties. In this particular case, the 'remaining work' entailed exploring the data structures in place and setting up a search routine to automatically sift through those humongous volumes of information for the logs she wanted. Everyday job for a VI technician, but slightly trickier when the user's manual for the system were nothing but a series of crumbling-down relics over 50,000 years old and some notes obtained via trial-and-error methods. Fortunately that was the kind of challenge that had driven Cirron into archaeotechnology.

Her elation was short lived as, unexpectedly, one of the consoles started flashing with pink lights all over.

Alarms started blaring all over the ship. Javik raced to the bridge as he shouted an order: "Orbak! Report!"

"It's the relay, commander! It's activating!"

The prothean cursed to himself in his native tongue and arrived to, futilely, behold the gigantic rings as they started to spin around the glow of the huge eezo core.

"_Victory, what the hell are you doing!_" That was the voice of the _Rathek_'s captain, Val'Akar.

"Professor!" He snarled with equal urgency.

"It's-it's-it's not on our side, captain!" Cirron's fingers frantically hammered at her console, as she watched in fright how the relay's systems reported alignment, clearance, and syncing with its mate somewhere in the cosmos. "We aren't opening it! It has activated on its own, or-!"

"We're not activating it, _Rathek,_ repeat, we have not activated the relay."

"It did not turn itself on just because," the salarian captain of Aria's task force quipped.

"In regards to us, it's as if it had chosen to do so. We did not do that," the prothean's voice was cold enough to freeze water. Somehow that managed to get the point across. "Nihaya, undock us and clear us away from the relay!"

His asari pilot obeyed the command with alacrity, rapidly putting distance between them and the freshly activated relay. "The Council is not going to like this one," Orbak mumbled.

"Who stands on its place, you mean," Cirron commented as she walked into the bridge. She turned apologetically to the commander: "Captain, I *swear*, it was not something we caused. You can examine all of my logs, watch all I did-"

"Nefara..." He put a casual hand on her shoulder again, then bowed his head. "You need not concern yourself. I will take a look at that later, but I believe you."

She deflated with a sigh of relief. "Thank you, captain."

"Take us to standoff range," Javik ordered to his pilot, then turned to Orbak. "Raise shields and prime our weapons. We must take the first shot at anything hostile that comes through that relay."

"You heard the commander," the batarian growled at the gunnery crewmen.

Next, Javik ordered a channel be opened to the quarians and T'Loak's forces. "What certainty do you have that the activation signal did not come from your ship?" the salarian in charge of the pirate fleet demanded.

"Concerning yourself with that is not going to stop a coming enemy," the prothean retorted quietly. "Both of you should redeploy your forces to have clear lanes of fire for your main guns."

On his flagship, Ahz wanted to tell the museum piece to stick his suggestions elsewhere, but that was only common sense. "Very well, what you say is... reasonable." The last word came off as it had been torn from him. Following Aria's instructions regarding overall authority was even harder. "Captain... Val'Akar, you have better knowledge of tactics. Where do you suggest we... position... ourselves?"

Javik left the bridge on the hands of his executive officer and headed to the QEC room. "Get me the _Normandy,_" he ordered his communications officer.

"At once, sir." On the bridge, a salarian inputted the necessary commands as the prothean stood on a circle set on the floor, on the head of the table. A few instants later a laser grid painted his body, and everything on the room vanished - other than the table.

And on the other end of the table, the human to whom he owed his current command and the chance of inflicting some degree of payback on the Reapers. "Captain," he said without ceremony. "The Delta 9 relay self-activated when it was being inspected."

His commander's brow knotted. "Anything coming from the other side?"

"Nothing yet, captain. The quarian and the pirate fleets are repositioning for better firing solutions as I speak."

A curt nod. "Where does it lead?"

"That is something our academic guest is trying to find out."

"EDI," Shepard called. "Get miss Lawson to join us."

"At once, Commander," the synthesized voice spoke. This one time Javik managed not to wince at the AI's voice.

Shortly afterwards a third figure joined them on the virtual conference hall. "Commander," Miranda bowed her head in greeting. Then she turned to face him: "Hello, Javik. I would ask how you have been but it appears that will have to wait."

"The D9 relay just went live," Shepard notified her.

Her expression did not change. "Isn't that wonderful," she quipped casually. "And no one is responsible for the blunder, I assume?"

"I went through the logs myself," Javik replied. He spoke for a few minutes describing the steps she had taken and the safeguards she had futilely put into place. "Miss Cirron's work was flawless."

The brunette officer did not even blink. She again faced Shepard: "I'm sold."

"Miranda, you get in touch with that drell you met and tell him to get ready for a long trip. How much longer for you to leave?"

"I have a meeting scheduled with Mikhailovich... but I believe I can tell him to postpone it given this news."

"Do it. I'll tell Bau to warn the Spectres. You talk to Hackett and get moving, Miri, on the double."

"Yes, Shepard." Her figure vanished.

"Javik, I'll try and see what kind of help I can send your way. Make sure you keep me posted of whatever news you get."

"I will, commander."

The Spectre's hologram vanished and the room lit up again. Javik stormed out and headed right for the mainframe. He found the duo that usually tended to the large computer were dumbfounded and disoriented enough to take a whole second to stand at attention. A gesture with his hand and they relaxed. That was not the case of professor Cirron, who was bent towards her console and working with such aching concentration that the very air around her seemed to buzz with energy.

"What have you learned?"

"WHA-?!" She nearly jumped off her seat. "Oh, you scared me, captain!"

Javik remained impassive. "Well?"

"Oh..." she turned to her console again, embarrassed. "I've been looking all over this... I don't know." To someone else, the symbols that filled the screen could as well have been the scribblings of a child. "I may have made a mistake somewhere, it's the first time I see half of this."

"Professor." He bent over to bring his four-eyed visage level with her face. "That can wait. We need to know where is the relay paired with this one."

"Oh, yes, sure, captain. Excuse me." Her cheeks turned a lively shade of blue. "Now that it's active again... it should not be that hard." Her knowing fingers queried the relay for the information requested. A scant second later her console displayed the results.

Nefara Cirron's eyes grew wide. "This cannot be."

"What?" Javik asked impatiently. She leaned back on her seat to allow the prothean to see and compute the coordinates.

Jokingly, Garrus Vakarian had once called him 'a smug bastard'. As any joke, it had its fair share of truth. On top of having an unique natural talent -the proper name was, actually, psychometry-, Javik had been reputed in the incredibly ancient days of the fall of his race as a cunning and smart individual - and that among his peers. Having been confronted time and time again with the brute competence of the primitive races around him had done little to mitigate that smug bastardry.

And, right now, he was surprised. He tapped his omni-tool, which at once brought up a map of the local system, that zoomed out several times... first, to show the local star cluster... then the arm of the galaxy where they were... then the galaxy as a whole, which grew smaller and smaller on his map...

...and, at last, stopped to show a blinking dot.

On the edge of a large galaxy close to the Milky Way.


	5. Reactions

The Citadel - Council rotunda

The elevator door opened with a soft hiss, and Dalatrass Talron and her deputation walked into the spacious halls that the Council usually used for their meetings. The exact reason for this one, she did not know; their intelligence services had only reported that for the past week the upper Alliance ranks had been in uproar. What had caused that, she had only been able to learn a scant hour prior to this 'urgent meeting' upon receiving a covert report from the Shadow Broker. Nowhere near enough for her government to plan on a strategy for that. Their head spooks were greatly troubled by their failure to find that out on their own, and, to an extent, so was she.

None of her concerns showed on her face. The matriarch, being the current leader of her own long and successful bloodline, was a consummate politician. Her features kept everything to herself. She did not react upon recognizing her asari counterpart, even if her brain was dissecting her on the spot. The remaining members of the asari matriarchy had appointed the famed Sha'ira to act on their stead with plenipotentiary powers. She was an adversary to respect, which Talron liked. The turian primarch Victus, less so. The soldier's skills were leadership and military strategy, as opposed to influence trading and negotiation - which were the weapons of choice in politics. Her human counterpart was a complete newcomer, but Prime Minister Boris Aleksandrovich Ustinov was a public figure of whom there were abundant records available on the human nets; he was an engineer who had had a great stake on the Rosenkov Materials conglomerate, only to sell his stocks upon appointment to public office. A builder, fit for rebuilding times.

Pleasantries were exchanged by the delegations. "Ah, dalatrass, good day to you," Victus greeted her politely, in spite of recent tensions. The turians had exhausted their fiscal reserves, and had been in need of fresh money despite the financial expertise of their volus allies and the sense of public duty of most of the Hierarchy, but each loan granted by the Salarian Union had had increasingly restrictive terms and higher rates. Without another readily available source of cash, there had been little choice, but to a man, Victus' advisors had rejected the first proposed loan contract for reconstructing Altakiril. An amended proposal brokered by the Citadel had been in turn rejected by the salarians.

"And to you, primarch Victus," she greeted him back with studied words. "I hear that work on Palaven is proceeding nicely." The loan issue was but one of the strategies set in motion by the matriarchy to break the united front of the other Council races. Its results hinged on the value placed on the Altakiril colony by the Hierarchy. If the greater good of their race dictated that they had to vacate the world, then the turians would vacate the world, but planets with dextro-amino-acid ecosystems being rarer than their counterparts would make that a last-resort decision. It was a dangerous ploy, but the potential risk of another krogan uprising overrode any other concerns.

"Your assistance is appreciated. As you know, it will take decades to repair all the damage." _More like centuries,_ Victus had thought sadly. Even if the turian species as a whole had been strengthened by the ordeal, and monuments to their unmatched determination to resist extinction were being erected everywhere, much had been lost. His race had suffered more than any other. One quarter of the overall turian population had died on the conflict._  
_

"If not for the turian military, probably none of us would be here." The Consort joined them. Victus knew that she spoke her words not out of mere courtesy. No other force in the galaxy had gone head to head with the Reapers on its own and withstood the onslaught as they had. He did not expect such knowledge to spur Sha'ira into a sadly voiced rebuke: "We read about your negotiations with the hierarchy, dalatrass. Why the conditions? Don't we all have a duty to share the burden? Why is your government allowing this profiteering to take place?"

Talron did not expect the asari to take so vocal a stand in defense of the turians. Either she was a formidable actress or naïve to a monumental degree... or both. Sha'ira was a mystery no one had yet figured out. "All funds publicly available to the Salarian Union were at once allocated to assist those most heavily hit by the Reapers, as you surely know. Further resources come from the pockets of our financiers. There is demand for fresh money, and they won't make that money available without compensation. Enforcing restrictions on terms will only dry up those sources."

"The Salarian Union has been most generous, matriarch," Victus noted placatingly, recognizing the Consort's pledge of allegiance and wondering what would she ask for in exchange. "Dalatrass Talron is correct, unfortunately. One can exert only so much pressure on bankers." The primarch, like most of his kin, despised economics. Their partnership with the volus, who in turn had a gift for that, had been a boon.

The human Prime Minister approached the discussing dignitaries. He was a hairless man with crystal-clear gray eyes, impressively built for a businessman turned politician. "You just spoke an important truth, primarch Victus," he stated in the way of a greeting. "Bankers almost destroyed our economy several times before we joined galactic society." The implicit challenge was there: _and they certainly will do it again unless they're curbed._

"That also happened to us," Talron agreed, "hundreds of years ago." She allowed her features to let through just enough for Ustinov to glimpse her thoughts: _Council members or not, you're newcomers with much to learn._

"It is so sad, what love of money does to a man." The russian deflected the dart adroitly. _Call us cavemen if you want, but the ball is in your court, not in mine. _

The elegantly concealed exchange did not escape either Sha'ira or Victus, but the incipient debate was suddenly cut short when a human diplomat, escorted by two marines, walked down the stairs. "Good day, Excellencies. If you would please follow me?"

Leaving their retinues behind, the dignitaries followed him back up the stairs, and were led by the diplomat to the rail-guarded balcony in front of the Council pulpit. It was odd to see only one person in the stead of the Council and more than one people on the balcony when it had been the opposite for generations.

"Dalatrass Talron, matriarch Sha'ira, prime minister Ustinov and primarch Victus," Hackett noted. "Thank you so much for answering my request so promptly."

"I was intrigued, I must confess," Victus replied, "to receive such urgent a summons with so scant an explanation."

"There is good reason for that, as you will see." He gestured at an aide, and a large hologram of the Terminus Systems appeared to his left. "I want to draw your attention to this distant corner of space." On cue, the aide zoomed on the region around the grand smuggling hub of Omega. In unison, four pairs of eyes blinked: "A new mass relay was recently found here. As you can see, it is right on the edge of the Omega nebula, far out of the way of any trade routes or worlds of interest. In fact, it would have never been picked up, if not for a stray probe intended to monitor the Omega station.

"Since it's beyond the reach of the Citadel, I enlisted the support of the quarian-geth combine and called on local groups who worked with us during the Reaper War to secure it. This operation was performed quickly and discretely. The quarians even managed to catch a mercenary vessel before it came within sensor range of the relay."

"Excuse me for interrupting, Admiral," Ustinov asked politely, "but which 'local groups' are you referring to?"

"The private fleet of the leading smuggler in Omega, Aria T'Loak."

Talron did not blink. "So that scum can now claim she acts with the vein of the Citadel."

"Dalatrass, Shepard arranged for this with no official involvement on our part," Hackett replied matter-of-factly. "Our Spectre was merely calling in some favors done to her when Cerberus evicted her from her stronghold."

Victus nodded. "I remember the episode. Please continue, admiral."

Another gesture to the aide, and the hologram displayed a recording of the relay as it was activating itself. "The _Victory_ SR1 recruited a scientist to examine the relay acting on our orders. During the initial studies, the relay went online of its own volition."

"On itself?" Sha'ira shifted from alarm to suspicion. "That sounds awfully convenient."

This time it was Hackett himself who changed the hologram: it was the file of an asari. "This is professor Nefara Cirron, a Serrice university graduate. We ran a thorough check on her. It turns out Javik chose well; she's an archaeotech authority." The hologram displayed fragments of her articles in quick succession. "With so few available experts on the field it is hard to evaluate whether her procedures were correct, but our prothean agent-" Hackett accented the 'prothean' "-vouches for her. She is still aboard the _Victory_ and her studies on the relay continue. I expect a full report on the results within the next three standard days."

None of the officials needed to be told on the importance of the finding. Ustinov inquired, "Have your agents conducted some sort of exploratory mission on the other side?"

"Not yet. We're taking extraordinary precautions in this case."

Talron nodded agreeably. "One can never be too dangerous with a new relay."

"Especially with this one." The hologram changed again to show a... not a map, but a diagram. "This relay is paired to another on the outer reaches of the M31 galaxy."

And, as he expected, the dignitaries were dumbstruck. Even the salarian dalatrass, he noted. He could relate. The news had staggered him as well. Hackett let that sink in for a few instants before continuing. "I've instructed our diplomatic corps to negotiate safe passage for one of our fleets. In this regard, T'Loak has personally spoken to me and assured us of her cooperation. My assessment is that keeping that gateway into our galaxy secure is well worth a public relations storm."

It took them all a few seconds to recover from the shock, and another few to digest what Hackett had just said. Then, at last:

"You have our full backing on this, Admiral," Talron stated.

"And ours," echoed Victus.

"The Asari Republics stand by your initiative," Sha'ira agreed.

"As does the Systems Alliance," Ustinov finished.

Hackett nodded. "It is good to see you are of one mind on this issue. I expect you to decide similarly on another." Another pause. "Having you brought here was not only for the sake of discretion. I intend to step down from the Council to assume command of the Citadel's 3rd Rapid Deployment Fleet." He eyed them one by one. "I am well past my time for replacement in any case. You will realize that having a formally appointed Council to take over cannot wait any further."

* * *

Alliance dreadnought SSV Aconcagua

A warning signal flashed on Tanaka's heads-up display shortly before the barks of Mattock rifles reached her location. The two OpFor troopers guarding this passageway were immediately alert, knowing that protecting this position while the enemy assaulted them on the other side was vital to prevent being stabbed in the back.

Behind her, a sniper broke cover and loosed a single round. The guard nearby was blown away by the force of the shot, his shields depleted - a fact that ruled him out of the exercise. A surge or purple-bluish energy surrounded her, shortly before she broke cover as well and loosed a shockwave that staggered the other trooper, long enough for the sniper to fire a second time.

The two marines cursed and looked helplessly -their entire gear was disabled, even their radios- as the Hades squad raced past their checkpoint and inside the simulated bunker. An engineer went immediately to work on the consoles while two heavily armored riflemen took their position on each side of the door. There was not much work to do there, really. He gave a 'ready' signal with his hand and one of the riflemen worked the switch.

They did not have to look. A heavy ceiling-placed sentry gun guarded their objective. They heard the soft whining of servo engines as the turret scanned the corridor and whatever it could see of the bunker beyond for targets.

* * *

On a nearby debriefing room, Vega was looking at a map of the Aconcagua's largest danger room. It was an exact, if antiquate, way to describe it; when the feature had been first implemented some marine had resurrected an old term to stand in place of the lengthy Tactical Exercising and Training Facility. It was, essentially, a very large hall with sliding walls and movable structures that could self-pack, self-unpack and self-deploy in minutes; a few commands and the danger room would reconfigure to represent anything from a krogan fortress to an office building, including enough security devices, sentry guns and obstacles to turn the whole place into a deathtrap, except for the ammunition used. Rounds fired here would be as 'lethal' to shields as live ammunition, but would not carry enough punch to penetrate any form of armor. Somewhat anachronistic for the current age -VI technology could simulate similar environments without that much hassle-, but computer games, however advanced, conveyed only so much. Some things soldiers could only learn from live-fire exercises.

He did not know whether to like or dislike what he was seeing. The Hades troopers had expertly deployed into two fire teams to accomplish the task set to them: secure guarded cargo from the bunkers guarded by a force four times their own, within a small time window. And they were succeeding. A team had smoothly infiltrated the outer perimeter, to be detected only upon reaching a position that afforded them enough cover to deploy fixed defenses; they were now doggedly resisting efforts from the defenders to dislodge them, while at the same time a second team seized the initiative to sneak in from another side and coolly dispose of the weakened defenses. They were now knocking the inner sentry guns offline. The beleaguered defenders were diverting some of their forces from the first to the second team, but it appeared that they would make it there too late.

It was, actually, only to be expected. Cerberus forces of this quality had given pause to N7 graduates. The Aconcagua's marines, while motivated by the challenge and skilled on their own, simply were not on the same league. He turned his face from the hologram. "They'll make it," he ruled.

"You don't like it, commander?" Rear Admiral Paul Lefevre was also watching the exercise with interest. Unlike most Alliance personnel, his hate of Cerberus had died with their leader and their puppeteers. Hades personnel was in his eyes valuable, not just because of their fitness or skills, but also for their usage of slightly different tactics.

"I fought them too many times to like them, sir."

Lefevre was already thinking what he would say to the defending team when the exercise was complete. _No lecturing. _To do that would not be too far from reprimanding a junior league team for being bested by the champions of a superior tier. "They have their uses. A big ego is a weakness. If it takes them to sober our troops up, I won't complain. Exercises like these are good in a while." _Especially considering how the war was won. _Some shenanigans with a special project instead of the baiting and maneuvering that the officer had spent fifty years perfecting. His job on the Reaper War had not been managing the assault on the enemy, but fighting a horribly unequal delaying action, gaining time for others to escape, for others to complete the Crucible. That there had been no other way to win did not make it any prettier on the old admiral's eyes.

James Vega knew he was right. "I'd have preferred a turian platoon for that instead of them."

Lefevre turned his eyes away from the screen where Hades One was now fighting to cover the retreat of its brother team. "You've done your homework, commander."

A confident smirk. "It's only common sense, sir." Vega knew that Lefevre had fought to evict the turian army from Shanxi.

A few minutes afterwards, the exercise was over. The defeated marines started getting back up on their feet. What little there was in the way of comradely commentary, it was directed at the close combat specialist that had started to integrate herself with the crew by the time Vega had arrived there. The rest got nothing short of the occasional cold glare. The old admiral frowned. _It's past time we left those ideas behind. That was the whole damn point of Hades._

Whoever had picked the codeword had probably erred on its meaning. _Purgatory_ would have been more adequate, Vega judged, but it would have been too self-evident. He had to decide now, ready or not. He had had plenty of time to complete the assessment. Skill-wise, they were superbly competent, maybe even to the point that, setting their transgressions aside, he could have used them during the assault to retake Earth as part of Hammer force. But a week was nowhere near enough time to gauge their reliability and loyalty... but then again, that was not his work. To determine that had been the task of those in charge of Hades, and what he had here were the ten best soldiers that program had produced. "Will you stay with me for the debriefing, sir?"

* * *

Delta 9 relay - Victory SR1

"I know why the relay activated itself," the asari scientist announced to Javik.

"I'm listening."

"We were scanned back. Look." A hologram produced by her omni-tool helped her explanation. Nefara had patiently labored at the huge databases built into the relic's hardware. Javik had admitted that her almost maniacal dedication to her work was admirable, as the asari had allowed herself the barest of pauses for nourishment and rest. "I found some newly-created logs on the relay computers. They concern us. Someone left behind a safeguard. The relay would remain inactive until it picked up signs of organic life."

He remained unfazed. "It did not turn itself on when the quarians first approached it. Why?"

Cirron had shaken her head. "Probably the programming responsible detected the geth and identified them as a threat. I don't know." A sigh. "I myself don't really buy that. I don't know."

"Possible," he allowed. Javik volunteered nothing of what he knew. Modern geth owed their individual sentience to Reaper software, reverse engineered and redistributed to his kin by the original Legion. That kept him worried, convinced as he was that anything made out of salvaged Reaper resources would be irrevocably tainted and never worthy of trust.

What came next was not a surprise -use of psychometry had revealed that it was on her mind-:

"Captain, can I request use of one of your probes?"

"What for?"

She took a sip of the green drink on her cup and squeezed her tired eyes shut for a second to try and clear them. "Well, since we can't go yet to the other side of the relay-I know, right?" She said defensively at the sight of his face. "I want to repeat the Turix experiment."

"Which means, you want to shoot it through to the other side," was the prothean's staid comment.

"The best we can do short of sending a crewed scout."

Javik had devoted some thought to the issue. First concern was, obviously, _What if there's someone watching on the other side?_ And his answer was: _If there is, and they have no liking for extragalactic visitors, then they have had plenty of time to send a warning over here. _That, if the hypothetical locals were anything like his own culture had been. He was not one given to conjecturing, and when he did, the prothean preferred to err on the bad side. Surprises tended to mean good things when one did.

"You're the only one aboard this ship that has not guessed at what we'll find on the other side," Cirron added with a smile on her voice.

"We'll know when we know," Javik replied curtly. "You'll get what you require, professor."

* * *

Normandy SR2

After the frantic worries of the first few days, the crews of the ships standing guard had relaxed just enough to speculate on the location of the relay mated to this one. _The quarians are intrigued about how different from ours that galaxy will be... but that's it... no interest at all in mining or settlement rights... and T'Loak will try to get some concession for minerals and eezo, in return for helping to secure the relay and negotiate a safe passage for Council forces. _Reports of agents were piling up on the Shadow Broker's terminal, and Liara T'Soni-Shepard was using the information to adjust the picture on her mind.

She had once told her spouse that she could start wars in minutes by having the right stuff read by the right eyes. Her last-minute report to the Salarian Union about the discovery of the relay was aimed at preventing one growing -slightly- more likely. Feeding the rift between their political class and their military-scientific complex was another initiative geared towards that end. That was delicate and dangerous work; the STG was the premiere intelligence service of the galaxy, and keeping the salarians in the dark for too long would result on a shake-up of the agency that would do her networks no good. Restablishing them to their pre-conflict health was a slow and painstaking task that required much patience.

She could thank the longevity of her race for that. Liara could easily accept a small setback today that would yield benefits in years. Not a luxury the salarians had.

She stretched tiredly, stood up, and turned off her console. She could stop playing spymistress for a while and return to the most joyful aspect of her life: motherhood.

"You're finishing early today, doctor."

"I have a broker-in-training to feed, Glyph. Keep everything tidy."

"Yes, doctor."

The pneumatic door closed behind her. She walked past the mess hall and ahead into the passageway, only to watch Miranda stopping in front of the elevator. The brunette officer turned her head and her eyes warmed. "Liara, good to see you."

"Thank you, Miranda. How was your trip?"

"I'm sure you already know." This elicited a somewhat contrite smile.

"Yes, well... I'm not versed on the particulars."

Lawson grinned in amusement. The elevator opened. "Krayt has some very peculiar ideas." Her eyes cautioned Liara.

"You can tell me when you come up later. Will you?"

"I wouldn't miss that."

_Of course she won't,_ the asari thought. Miranda left the elevator on the second deck, where her spouse was, conferring with Ash, Garrus, Tali and EDI. Liara was left alone as the elevator took her to the captain's quarters, her tired mind wandering. She had known of Miranda being irremediably barren from the previous Broker's files. Sharing her spouse's memories of the relationship with the former Cerberus officer had been decidedly unpleasant - and that displeasure had forced her to reexamine her own words and acts. Had not she told Shepard, when her spouse had been forced to choose between Ashley and herself years ago, that her race did not understand jealousy as humans experienced it?

Why then her mortified outburst on the terraces of Illium, when she had called Shepard out because of 'miss Lawson and her low-cut outfit'?

She was still early on the second century of her life, and galactic legend or not, she was still immature on many things, motherhood being one of them. Probably that perspective she had alluded to so long ago was something that came with age. But being confronted with one's own hypocrisy was always unpalatable, no matter how old you were when the mirror returned something less than what you wanted to see.

Either she admitted her mistake, or she lived up to her words. Dwelling on memories not her own had inclined her towards the latter.

She opened the door to their quarters - and, as expected, the soft cooing of a baby still not totally awake greeted her. A warm smile spread on her face. "Shhhhhhh... guess who's here? Guess who's here?" She whispered softly. In the small crib next to their bed, a pair of eyes turned to search for the voice. She reached into the crib and brought her daughter up against her chest. "Mommy's here, see?" Softly, Liara pressed her nose against her child's. That always made her laugh, and again she did now. She loved it. For a short while she cradled her softly as she sang to her in a low voice, tickling her with a finger or again pressing their noses together. Then she put her briefly into the crib again, changed clothes, and settled into her motherly routine: change her daughter's clothes and diapers, bathe her, and settle down comfortably on the bed to breast-feed her.

It was bliss. She had everything she wanted aboard the _Normandy_: a job that challenged her, a spouse that loved her, and friends that were like family to them. There was also the added bonus of a crew that was ferociously protective of its newest member. That her current home was the most famous ship across the galaxy had also some perks -increased security- and some problems -interference with her secretive work-. Eventually she would have to move to the Citadel apartment the late Anderson had gifted to her partner; Alina would need friends, and she would not make many aboard a military vessel. But that was far into the future for the moment.

The door opened with a hiss. "How is the future Shadow Broker doing?" Shepard asked with a broad smile.

"See for yourself." Alina's whole world, right now, was her mother's left breast.

"I guessed as much... Tending to important business."

"The most important one there is." They exchanged a soft kiss, then lay together for a silent while, entranced by the blue bundle by Liara's chest.

"She's grown so much already..."

"Don't you go and tell me you expected her to remain a baby for a decade."

Shepard shrugged. "Well, your kind lives for a thousand years, right? I did think she would be slower to grow."

"Disappointed?" She raised her eyes to meet her spouse's.

"No, not really." Another kiss.

"Miranda will be coming up later, she said."

"Um, okay..." Her couple shifted uncomfortably.

"Shepard." She looked again and saw her own reflection in those eyes. "It's okay."

The N7 felt the clarification was necessary: "What is okay, Liara? What happened between her and myself back then, or-"

"She loves you, and our daughter, Shepard. She does not simply lust after you like a... how did you call it once? A teenage fan?"

A headshake. "It's so easy to forget that when we meld you get to read my mind like a book."

"And you read mine," Liara replied serenely. "And still, this is not the first time we discuss that."

"Knowing your weak points is one reason that keeps me coming back to this."

The situation did not call for a smile, but Liara did. "I know. That's why it's okay. Relax, it's not like I'm going to lock the two of you together in a room either."

"But I love _you,_ Liara."

"And I love you, too. And you love her as well, and she loves you." She kept her eyes on her couple.

Asari were strange, Shepard thought, painfully aware of her knowing their mutual agonies. That kind of mindset was very rare between humans. The idea of a single, lifelong couple was too deeply ingrained into mankind's collective psyche - or, at least, into that part of humanity that had taken the western values and culture to the stars. Some human cultures thought differently, but the N7 had not come into contact with them, learning about that mostly from books or extranet articles.

"What?" Liara asked, noticing the cogs as they turned.

"I was wondering what makes you so different from us." _Again._

She kissed her spouse. "We are together now, Shepard. That is going to change. Unlike your species, we know we can't hold onto our partners forever. That makes us more tolerant." She saw her words hurt. It was as she had said. Teaching her couple that today was what counted, not the distant tomorrow, was hard but not impossible. "That is why Alina is with us today."


	6. Early forays

Tuchanka

Rubble. Miles upon miles of rubble, all around as far as eyes could see. This was the province of beasts that had added to the reputation for toughness of the planet's natives, not of the natives themselves. Varren, thresher maws and klixen, among others, called these wastelands home.

Krogan had also called them home, so many years ago that those ages were nearly mythical now. They were not a race with much in the way of written records, and even less gifted regarding literary inclinations. But the tales handed down by shamans and mothers to their young spoke of days when Tuchanka was a lush, verdant world, and almost as every bit as deadly as it was nowadays.

What little life escaped the nuclear firestorms had only grown more ferocious and determined to survive. The krogan had been driven to existing underground or within fortresses. Shaped by that spartan life into ever tougher warriors, time and time again they had went out to war, first on the Rachni Wars and then on the following insurrections, and in more recent days to defeat the juggernauts that had threatened to snuff every life on the galaxy.

Ravanok Lisk had left Tuchanka emboldened by the promises of glory and honor, following the humans that had freed them from the deceitful webs of the renegade Spectre and then breathed new vigor into his species by breaking the curse their salarian and turian enemies had laid upon them. He had killed and killed and killed on eight different worlds, blasting enemies to pieces day and night, even ripping apart abominations with his bare hands when his own life at times threatened to ebb away. The battlemaster, raised for fighting and struggle, had not felt the slightest pain or sadness for his fellows, even as they fell in battle cursing their foes with their last breath. It was a warrior's death, hardly anything could be better than that. Busying his mind with concerns about sacrificing to uplift themselves was beyond him.

Until the war was over. He had returned to his homeworld along with the battle-scarred remnants of his clan's army. He had rightfully earned the right to breed. He had not expected the joy of looking into the eyes of his newly-born sons and daughters -when shortly ago his species had dreaded the moment of birth, knowing that one in ten survived past the first few minutes- to blast through him like a deadly shot. He was not used to joy. The violent and adrenaline-fueled glee of victory could not compare. They were his own flesh and blood made kin.

Only then the unfairness of it all had started to sink in. Now, Lisk watched yet another dawn, alone in the wastelands he strove to make himself part of, surrounded by the corpses of a dozen varren, and asked himself yet another time when the deliverance from this cursed rock would come. Had they not proved enough? Had they not bled to save others on top of their own? That the sins of his ancestors had left scars that ran deep was a fact that had little weight in his thoughts. Other young warriors spoke of glorious wars for conquest to retake 'what had been rightfully theirs'. He had had enough of war. He wanted nothing more than that which had been promised: a pure world for his descendants to thrive and prosper.

He knew that was the expectation of the great tribal coalition forged on the eve of the genophage being cured. The chieftain of clan Urdnot, Wrex, was trying to refocus the energies of his people into building instead of warring. Noble and necessary an endeavor, even more for a species that for thousands of years had known nothing other than fighting.

But even if the skills for building a society in peace would take years upon years to develop, Lisk could not help but wonder... what if they were deluding themselves? What if, despite goodwill and promises, there was no new world waiting for them? What if the blood shed by his race had bought them only grudging forgiveness?

Lisk could not answer those questions. He was nowhere nearly high enough on the totem pole to know of the support humans had promised them. He had never cared much for the future beyond the time the money earned as a mercenary would support him. Having lives to care for was as new and alien to him as... as...

He could not think of something that compared to it.

He was not a man of great intellect. But he needed not being a genius to know that seeing his children grow on a healthier planet, one that allowed them a future other than eking out a survivor's life on these wastes, was important enough to sacrifice his own future for that.

* * *

Delta 9 relay - Victory SR1

"Last check," Cirron ordered.

"All probe systems green," the volus aide reported.

"Receivers fully powered and standing by," the turian beside him echoed.

The asari scientist glanced at the knot of officers standing behind her. Javik bowed his head slightly in agreement.

"Countdown initiated," she announced. "Launch in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... probe is away."

Eyes aboard every vessel on the fleet assembled around the Delta 9 relay followed the arrowlike contraption as it sped away from its mothership and turned towards its target.

"Relay has acquired," the volus intoned. "Interrogating for clearance..." a second-long pause. Javik and Orbak traded a glance.

"Relay reports corridor clear from obstacles. Tunnel is being opened now." A jagged tendril of lightning-like energy arced towards and caught the probe.

"Probe entering tunnel in 3... 2... 1..."

There was a very brief pulse of light as the probe was propelled to its exit point in another galaxy.

"Probe is... signaling... jump complete," Cirron announced. She was working her console, her eyes intensely focused, expecting to see something... now. "We have some readings..." The large hologram interface she had prepared in advance started displaying information. "The relay on the other side... is on a nebula of ice crystals and asteroids... gas pockets... and orbiting a white giant. Five... no, six planetary bodies... two asteroid belts... the relay appears to be outside the habitable zone. Hold on, pictures coming in."

The hologram changed to show part of the relay on the lower left corner of the picture, and a sky filled up with millions of stars and clouds of dust. The sun of that alien star system was not visible.

"Low energy signature within local range of the probe," Cirron announced. "I'm steering it over towards that..."

More pictures came in. A rear-camera shot showed the relay in full view. "Is that ice?" Orbak pointed at some material extraneous to the relay that was still adhered to it.

Cirron studied the picture for a few seconds. "The relay was... encased in ice? Maybe," she allowed. "I remember the... Charon relay, on the Sol system, had been encased in ice too. Probably..."

"Show me the energy signature," Javik asked. The picture changed after a few instants. The picture showed a small source of heat amidst a dark background. A quick command changed the view from a thermographic image for a simple optic capture. He strained to make sense out of the image... Stars... Crystals of ice... Asteroids...

The signature appeared to match a roughly oval-shaped asteroid... that was not an asteroid at all.

"Artificial structure," the turian aide stated, however unlikely it appeared. "Low energy readings... onboard temperature is 268.8 and climbing..."

The captain of the _Victory_ did a quick conversion. 268.8 degrees meant slightly below the freezing point of water. "That place could support life."

"Someone knew of the relay," his batarian lieutenant whispered. "Why didn't they open it?"

"Probably they couldn't," Cirron replied. "Gentlemen, I don't believe that station is inhabited."

"Why, professor?" Orbak asked.

"This relay has been operational for the past week already," she stated. "If someone was watching, how come there are no ships over there? Probably whoever ordered that station built is long dead. Unless this one is the only relay in this galaxy...

The structure was not far from the relay, relatively speaking, no doubt to let its builders keep a closer eye on the strange object.

"Temperature is rising... now 275.44. Scanning for point heat sources," the volus informed.

"An onboard power source, no doubt." Cirron frowned. "Automated routines... a reaction in case a ship was detected?" _Makes no sense, this thing is a probe-but a probe could be identified as a sign of nearby vessels..._

"Picking up dark energy emissions, ma'am," the turian operator reported. "Most likely due to mass effect fields being manipulated."

_But what for?_ "Shields?"

"Negative, ma'am."

"Professor, give us some internal scans of that station," Javik demanded.

"I'm sorry, captain, but that's not possible. I had to remove that equipment to make room for the remote control gear."

"Those probes had remote control capability of their own," Orbak objected.

"Not for transmitting signals through relays and across galaxies," Cirron pointed out.

The exploration went on for a few minutes in silence. Then Javik spoke on a hunch: "Bring the probe within point-defense range." The order was quickly obeyed. They watched as the object grew closer and larger on the photographic feeds... soon they could make a few more details. The station had been constructed out of some silvery metal with a purplish sheen. Its surface had once been smooth, but countless small impacts dotted the bulkhead. _Micrometeorites?_ _Then it does have shields after all._ There were a few windows, with no interior lights yet turned on.

Cirron was, at the same time, analyzing the readouts of other sensors aboard the probe. "Captain, this is no mere asteroid thicket. This is a debris field." The large holographic screen depicted a close-in shot of what appeared to be a burned-out part of a bulkhead clustered with ice.

Orbak mused, "A battle was fought here... professor, it would be nice to date that debris whenever possible."

"Noted," she replied.

Javik took a step backwards mentally to consider the big picture. _Some wear on the station, but no combat damage visible... this was left behind by the winner to keep an eye out on the relay. And Reapers left no such monitoring stations..._

_Who were they? The Inusannon? Did they hold off the Reapers here and escaped deeper into this other galaxy? _

* * *

Alliance dreadnought SSV Aconcagua

Vega was fast asleep when his omni-tool flashed and buzzed. He grumbled, blinked once, and managed a half-groaned: "Yeah?"

"FLASH traffic, eyes-only, commander," the voice on the other side of the line explained apologetically. "Forwarding message to you... now."

"...Fine..." Another blink. A quick tap: 0411 AM, Greenwich Meridian time. "It better be damn good," he whispered to himself. A few further taps and the message appeared. It was simple text, no audio, no video. He read it, then re-read it, mildly puzzled. Then: "Wake up all Hades personnel. They have to be ready to go within the hour."

"Yes sir."

He lay for a few seconds, eyes closed, on his bunk, then threw the covers aside. Some frantic ten-odd minutes later he was fully dressed and washed again, if only still half asleep, too numb to consider past the initial intrigue what could a Citadel officer want with the troops he had been evaluating. He left his cabin and made his way through the gargantuan ship over to one of the fighter bays just in time to watch a silver-painted Kodiak shuttle on final approach - and the Cerberus veterans forming up, burdened with their luggage.

Sachiko spotted him first and snapped a salute. "Sir." As one, the rest of the troopers did likewise.

"As you were." After a week of exhausting training and drills, Vega had grudgingly recognized that the troops he had been tasked to evaluate were a tough crew. He had yet to submit his report, however. This inspection was unexpected. He wanted to contact his CO, but the haste with which this visit had apparently been laid on gave him little time to do that. He would know soon enough.

It was an odd time to reflect on how he had been addressed and treated like a senior officer. He was not used to that, even if he had all the rank required. He was a commander now, and it was not unusual for other officers of his station to be at the helm of their own ships. He was not worried for that not being his case, front-line animal that he was, with an N7 commission to boot. Vega preferred to be surrounded by other front-line animals and get up close and personal with the enemy, instead of giving terse orders to a crew of sailors and watching targets explode on screen like some goddamn video game.

The shuttle docked with not so much as a muted thump. Whoever was in charge of flying that brick, he knew his shit. The side hatch opened noiselessly.

A humanoid with lizard-like skin stepped down first, dressed in black clothes with a few silver accents. A drell. After him came a brunette woman wearing a skin-tight two-piece... uniform... in black and white.

He allowed himself a closer look at her. She rang a bell... and was smoldering hot, his interested self appreciated, while his soldier self kept his features and eyes in rigid control as he stepped forward to meet her. _I've seen this chick..._

He saluted. "Commander James Vega reporting as ordered, ma'am."

Her eyes scanned him in turn. They were empty, almost apathetic. Her expression seemed that of someone mildly amused because of some joke only she was privy to. "Thank you, commander. I'm Miranda Lawson, and my aide here is Jondar Krayt. We are here on the authority of the Special Tactics and Recon office. I hope not to have inconvenienced you," she added.

The name _Miranda _boomed in his head. _The Illusive Man's hatchet girl! What's she doing working for the Spectres... is *she* a Spectre herself?!_ However stolid his face appeared, his eyes belied his bafflement for the briefest of instants. Miranda's eyes changed also, but still they gave nothing away.

Even if he had not known of her past, he would have taken a dislike at her all the same. "Just doing your job, ma'am, as I'm doing mine."

"I'm sure." She switched gears on the spot. "Your report on these men is still expected, I've been told." Miranda knew she had been recognized by the veterans the moment she had stepped on the docking bay.

"You got that one right."

"Something keeping you waiting, commander?"

"As a matter of fact, ma'am, there is something. Care to follow me, if you please?"

"Lead the way." She exchanged glances with Krayt, who nodded and waited behind.

Vega found himself wishing the message warning him of the surprise visit had not come down from Mikhailovich himself. Then he could have asked for some proof. _Actually, I can verify the message. _As the door to the docking bay closed behind them and they climbed the stairs to the observation deck, he tapped his omni-tool: "Bridge, this is commander Vega. I need to verify a FLASH message directed to me at 0410 hours Earth time."

"Hold on, commander," the duty officer acknowledged. Behind Vega, Miranda's lips curved the tiniest bit.

Once they were upstairs she leaned against the window, her back to the docking bay. "What is it, commander Vega?"

"I'm not convinced of their reliability, ma'am." _And, I should add, I can't trust you either._ He knew what had taken place at Sanctuary, and had heard some rumbles about ex-Cerberus privateers hitting the Reapers on their own, but that did not mean he had counted either her, or her associates, as allies. Someone who betrayed an allegiance once could do it again with half the qualms.

"You were meant to assess their fitness, not their trustworthiness." She crossed her arms. "Since that has you worried so, I can tell you I got that covered."

"And I have to take the word of a former Cerberus top brass for it."

If that cracked her shell, it did not show. "Commander, I understand your reluctance and your unease, but you're not supposed to like it. I have been picked by your senior officers to direct these men on a critical assignment, probably because I know them better than anyone on the Alliance."

"And whose orders were those?"_  
_

"Admiral Mikhailovich's." She tilted her head to a side. "Do you want to have them checked out?"

Vega held onto his temper - and then asked himself why was he so angry. Her whole expression radiated arrogance, save for her entirely neutral eyes. To her, it was just business. She had known of his mistrust, and handling him and his misgivings was just another part of the job. That both of them had served under the same officer -if on different agencies- was probably another reason for her to take charge of these men. This much he understood.

"I will, but that can wait for a while," he conceded. "First, I want to know of the assignment. Where are you sending these Hades?"

"That I can tell you, but not here." She glanced at her shuttle.

"I haven't said I'm going yet."

"That's the safest place on this entire ship to discuss that." She caught the flare on his eyes. "This is extremely sensitive information, commander. I won't doubt the expertise of Alliance counterespionage personnel, but there were agencies far more skilled around centuries before we made it to the stars."


	7. Contact

2187 Ubtao

Inside the shuttle, the troopers heard little, but the walls of the fighter bay vibrated as the engines of the Kodiak screamed to life. Its brother craft, two other Kodiaks equally loaded with troops, left their respective docking bays almost in unison.

"Khar'Shan actual, this is Vulture Lead. We're spaceborne and initiating our run."

"Roger that, Vulture. Ladar is clear. You may proceed."

Arrayed around Vulture flight and their silent target was a third of the force amassed to guard the Delta 9 relay, comprised by mixed assets contributed by the quarian-geth fleet, Aria's private force and the Citadel's own navy. That navy was Hackett's legacy, and its founding had been a mere act of protocol. The challenge posed by the Reapers had done a great deal to integrate members of the most diverse species and services into a single cohesive fighting force, molded after the turian doctrine -which was, to be sure, the _non plus ultra_ of military efficiency-. The posterior lack of hostile threats had turned this juggernaut into an armed disaster relief corps, but it had performed on that role as quickly and well as their depleted means had allowed, putting out fires all over Citadel space - and a few times on Terminus worlds, at their own behest. That had resulted into only less than a half of that immense fleet returning to the command of their respective species' governments, with the remainder organized into several Rapid Deployment Fleets flying under the Citadel's own flag.

To the Hades troops it had come as a surprise of sorts to be led by a former Cerberus officer - in this case, the once-lieutenant for the Illusive Man, Ms. Lawson. The briefing had been handled pretty much the same way it had been done on their old agency. Probably whoever had been in charge of setting up that mission had recognized the value of letting them work on their own terms, as opposed to shoving Alliance doctrine and tactics down their throats. They had been outfitted as a Cerberus force alright, down to the engineers packing their deployable turrets.

"Vulture flight, this is Lead, scatter and head in." The station was not particularly large, probably one third of the cruiser that had taken them there; if viewed from above it looked roughly oval in shape, but from the side it appeared to be a cube-like structure with rounded corners. Four likely ways inside had been identified: the first was a large hangar bay, but heavily armored metal doors prevented access for the moment. The second was a dome-like observation deck, and the remaining two appeared to be similar to airlocks.

"This is Vulture 2, acknowledged."

"This is Vulture 3, roger."

Vulture 1 and 2 packed each a mixed platoon of Hades and geth troops, twelve-strong. Vulture 3 did not have as many synthetics -only four, as opposed to seven for the other platoons-, and its remainder was comprised by a mixed troop: two krogan vanguard troops, turian and drell infiltrators, and a quartet of asari.

* * *

The lead ship in charge of operations on Andromeda space was the Citadel cruiser _Khar'Shan_, flanked by the quarian and Omega flagships. Their commanders were on their respective communication rooms, which had all linked with each other to create a virtual CIC where they all could follow the insertion teams as they made their way into the station - and could keep an eye on each other at the same time.

It was a familiar setup for Miranda, who had worked on such an environment during her stint as a Cerberus officer. It was not as familiar for Mikhailovich, T'Loak or Val'Akar, but they all had interests to keep eyes on. Even if, in the case of the quarian, they were not clearly understood. By mutual agreement, the human admiral was in charge of operational matters, with Aria and Val'Akar standing by to "provide advice if needed."

The asari kingpin kept a stony face as usual. She had had time enough to dwell privately on the possibilities. The mere presence of Omega near the relay guaranteed that the commerce flowing through her station would be squared more than once, without her having to spend a single credit on resource surveying or infrastructure development. Still, her help entitled her to mineral rights on a region of her choosing, that region being either a planet or an asteroid field, and she intended to make the most out of those rights. Whether she would use them herself or trade them to someone else, she would decide in the future.

"Actual, this is Vulture 3. Approaching LZ."

"Copy your approach warning, Three. You have green light." Miranda glanced at Mikhailovich.

"Devil flight, keep your eyes on the hangar bay. I don't want surprises today."

"You got that one right, boss," came the scratchy reply. On Miranda's board, the flight of strike craft moved to loiter right underneath the station, their noses and weapons pointed at the still-closed bay doors. If the idea of vorcha fighter pilots had been cause for laughter once, nobody was laughing now.

* * *

Aboard Vulture 2, the Hades squad already had unbuckled themselves and awaited the pilot's clearance. Two Phantoms -Tanaka and a similarly small girl, Martinsson- would be their point men and forward scouts. Krauze, the single engineer, packed two deployable turrets on his back, plus another one on a portable case. McGuinness and Bondarenko were their Centurions and heavy weapons specialists, the first one carrying a grenade launcher with a variety of loads, and the second one a recent addition to the Alliance armory: a direct energy weapon based on reverse engineered Collector technology.

The geth were more heavily armed, carrying an impressive assortment of rotary cannons, flamethrowers and anti-materiel rifles. They all were taller and heavier than their organic counterparts. Sachiko knew enough about the geth to tell that these were former Prime units, once hubs that had centralized geth processes - and highly valuable targets. The synthetics had recognized that, and had armed and armored these platforms accordingly. Now they would serve as their snipers and armor.

"Actual, this is Vulture 2," they heard the pilot report. "Approaching LZ."

"Copy your approach warning, Two," Lawson acknowledged. "You are cleared to go."

"That's our call, people," Bondarenko noted as squad leader. "Zero-g status?"

Krauze quickly checked the readouts he was getting from sensors on everyone's armor. "All is green."

"Open her up," the commanding Centurion told the Kodiak pilot. A nod, a few taps on the control panel, and amber warning lights started spinning. 'Alert, alert. Compartment is depressurizing,' a female synthetic voice warned.

The hatch opened. Air whooshed out. Their target was some scarce five meters away. It was a circular hatch door, with twin hexagonal panels set on each side but no visible instruments.

The geth went out first, twisting midjump to land with their feet on the hull around the airlock. Most of them trained their weapons on the closed pressure door, save for one who went to work to find an opening mechanism while the Hades troopers deployed.

* * *

Cirron had protested not being allowed to go, but the situation fell under the rules of engagement for first contact events and she could not be exposed so. Now her eyes were glued on the feeds of the troopers' helm-built cams. She held a key on her console and spoke:

"Beta, one of these panels surely is an emergency access hatch for a door release. They should have a switch to open them mechanically."

"Acknowledged." A few minutes later, it turned out to be that there was no such switch, and the plasma torches usually employed on boarding actions were unusually slow to cut through that alloy.

"And that's just a thin panel," Val'Akar mused.

"Akar-commander, the target's hull is polarized," Legion reported. A polarized hull disrupted plasma cutting tools, slowing down forced entry operations. "In all likelihood, our boarding action has been recognized as such and self-defense measures have triggered." This information was quickly relayed to the squads inside.

"Which means that any useful data has already been trashed," T'Loak mumbled with irritation.

* * *

Some twenty-odd laborious minutes later, two of the geth forced the inner airlock doors open; they were very heavy and would not budge easily. The engineer inspected the dark corridor that yawned before them. The walls were mostly smooth, save for a few places with mosaic-like metal slabs of different colors and shapes, all geometric ones.

"All teams, be advised we are picking up power surges inside," their commanding officer warned through the radio. "Expect active countermeasures."

"Roger," Bondarenko acknowledged. Three of the geth took point, to cloak and vanish into the darkness a few steps later. Martinsson and Tanaka followed them.

The corridor led into another with several closed doors. The engineer and the geth inspected two of those: they were equally locked with a few small lights turned on on adjacent panels. Krauze turned towards his commander and shook his head. "No way we're going to open these without a blowtorch, sir."

The Centurion queried his HUD for a report on the other teams' progress: they were similarly slowed down. Alpha squad was tasked with locating and securing the station's power source, while Gamma's objective was finding the central control room and the mainframe, if there was any here. Their goal was to secure the hangar and open it to allow for the shuttles to land. "We can deal with these later. Keep going."

* * *

They had traversed a few corridors in near-pitch black obscurity when something clicked in the darkness.

The two Phantoms froze on their tracks.

Seeing them stop, Bondarenko raised a bunched fist, and the rest of his squad stopped as well.

The geth on the vanguard advanced into the large square chamber, weapons raised, their steps echoing loudly in the darkness.

Then the hall and the passageways were flooded with searing light, some of the mosaic-like geometric panels snapped open, and the air turned thick with small flyers.

At once, Tanaka jumped backwards, towards the rest of her squad, and raised a defensive bubble, while Martinsson did likewise to protect the geth vanguard. It worked. The things, whatever they were, could not penetrate the shields, and quickly clustered over them like ravenous locusts denied their meal.

* * *

"Collector swarms?!" Mikhailovich asked in astonishment.

Miranda was taking pict-captures using the troopers' helm-built cameras. "Not quite," she noted. Instead of a brownish, overgrown flea with wicked talons and two pairs of wings, this flyer resembled a dull silver beetle with monstrously huge fangs-

"What is that?"

* * *

Sachiko knew that something was wrong when the swarm of artificial insects took flight to become once again a cloud that filled the room-

-and spiderlike, multiple-legged contraptions appeared on the corridor on the other side of the room. They had no immediately noticeable sensors nor visible lights.

"Krauze, talk to me," Bondarenko demanded tersely. The engineer was running scans on the constructs that approached tersely.

"Picking up dark energy emissions, sir... significant ones..."

Two of the four constructs started climbing the wall, their 'heads' kept pointed at Tanaka's group.

"Prepare to take a shot at them," Martinsson whispered at the geth. "I'm blinking the barrier."

At once, one of the synthetics put a knee to the ground and brought its massive sniper rifle to bear. The Phantom started a countdown on her omnitool... five... four... three... two... one...

As one, the swarm again clustered over the shield. A small panel on the heads of the two spiders facing Martinsson slid upwards, split into two, and revealed a blue-greenish light behind. There was a blinding flash as the flyers on top of Martinsson's shield exploded with a burst of greenish lightning, followed by the cascading blasts of shockwaves: a single scream cut short by a thunderous blast, and the Phantom was sent flying back towards her squad. The synthetics dropped their arms limply to the sides and twitched briefly-

"Synth unit, fire at will!" Bondarenko ordered. Tanaka dropped her shield and their complement of geth stepped forward immediately to form a defensive shield. There was a flash of fire and smoke as one of the flamethrowers turned part of the swarm into charred metal husks. A Widow rifle boomed: one of the spiderlike constructs erupted in a shower of sparks.

Sachiko caught a glimpse of another blue-green flash and readied herself: the construct lobbed a whirling blob of energy their way. She followed the spherical attack with her eyes, took a deep breath, and exhaled quickly as she projected a shockwave of her own that coalesced right in contact with the sphere, causing it to explode into a black hole-like singularity. At once the swarm reacted to keep clear of its pull.

"Good work, Tanaka, keep at it!" The squad spread to the left, towards the writhing Phantom that had been knocked against the wall. The grenade launcher of the other Centurion spat a round with a few sparks, and lightning exploded over the other spider. A few of the tiny fliers dropped to the floor, but the biotic construct was apparently unharmed by the attack.

"Attack ineffective, sir, they resist EM rounds," McGuinness reported coolly. There was another flash of light as Tanaka countered another biotic assault, and riposted with a barrage of her own. The construct turned ablaze with brilliant blue fire.

Krauze quickly realized that Martinsson was not squirming on her own, but her powered armor was triggering every first aid response built into it, including cardiac arrest countermeasures. He queried her suit and implants with feverish speed. She was alive, but unless that arrhytmia got under control they would lose her. "Sir, we need to get her out of here, now!"

Bondarenko took aim and pulled the trigger on his particle cannon. The burning lance of energy vaporized every flyer it touched. The swarm reacted with near-human urgency and clustered protectively around the remaining spider, but to no avail. A violent explosion filled the room with shrapnel. He queried his helm-built HUD for a status report on his squad: McGuinness and Tanaka had taken a couple of scratches, but were otherwise unharmed.

"Commander, the two remaining targets have retreated into the ducts used by the swarms to pour in," one of the geth informed. The gnatlike things also were seemingly vacating the room, pushed back by the geths' flamethrowers.

"How are your... fellows?"

"Platforms are not immediately recoverable."

The Centurion quickly assessed his options. Out of the four men and seven synthetics he had entered the station with, he was down to three troops beside himself and four geth heavies. One third of his strength gone. "Command, this is beta, we're digging in on this corridor. We're going to need heavier numbers if we are to storm this station."

"Acknowledged. Secure the position and stand by for reinforcements."

Then he turned to McGuinness: "Take two of the geth and get Martinsson back to the shuttle ASAP."

"Yes sir."

* * *

"They're synthetics, by the looks of it." Bondarenko's camera was focused on the remains of the spider-like construct that had not exploded. It seemed made of mechanical parts alright, and there were neither blood nor fluids around. "Ma'am, this thing is oozing with dark energy."

"I'm seeing the readings." Miranda had watched the fight not so much with apprehension, but with detached interest instead.

Val'Akar mumbled, "Synthetic biotic users..."

"Whoever-whatever they are, they have an understanding of biotics that surpasses anything we know," Cirron commented clinically. "It's been speculated as possible; after all, biotic talents are produced by stimulation of eezo nodules in the brain, but they take many years of training to develop and hone."

"Status on the other teams?" Mikhailovich asked.

"Also holding their positions," the former Cerberus officer replied. Teams Alpha and Beta had both sustained casualties. Team Gamma had made way into the station relatively unhindered, but had been hit in force by the sentries and had been forced to retreat. So far they had not lost anyone, probably because of their heavier biotic strength.

She watched an engineer of Hades Alpha who, assisted by a geth, was cannibalizing a Widow rifle to turn one of his turrets into a stationary anti-materiel gun. The same was being attempted by Beta squad. "Sir, I suggest we send in the N7 teams and Javik's troop."

"Approved," Mikhailovich nodded. "Alert Vega and Williams."

* * *

'Javik's troop' was a twenty-strong unit that called themselves the Revenants. As any military unit, the motto was in part intimidating, and it was well deserved in their case: that motley crew was slowly making a name for itself because of their near-suicidal disregard for danger and their absolute ruthlessness. But that name also hinted at their destroyed pasts, since, like all of the Prothean's crew, they had nothing to care for outside the _Victory's_ hull.

The Centurion in command of Hades Beta watched Javik approach and saluted. "Lieutenant Bondarenko reporting, sir."

The Prothean nodded curtly. "We have brought extra loadouts for your troops, lieutenant. Those Mattock rifles you have are inadequate here."

"Right you are, sir... they appear pretty well armored." The weapons were straight out of the _Victory's_ own armory: particle rifles and cannons, and flamethrowers for the geth. Bondarenko hefted a rifle: "Never saw those, sir."

"Save your thermal clips for your sidearm, captain, those weapons do not need them."

He left Bondarenko to the business of rearming his squad and studied the hall. A hundred-odd of the small flyers dotted the floor; a few were still flying around. Slowly he crouched and laid his fingers on the floor. The hall was thick with the tension and dread and vertigo of the brief gunfight, but little else. Time and the environmental systems of the station had destroyed any traces of other people having been there. Then he repeated the operation on the destroyed construct - with identical effect. He glanced first at the corridor on the other end of the hall, then at the ceiling duct through which the insect-like swarm and the larger constructs had retreated. He turned towards the Hades Centurion. "Stay... on your toes. I doubt we've seen the last of those synthetics."

"I couldn't agree more with that, sir," the man nodded.

Then a light flashed on Javik's omni-tool. He tapped it: "Yes?"

"Captain, you may want to press forward ASAP." It was Cirron. "We've just picked up a major surge of dark energy emissions from the lower levels of the station."

The prothean shook his head. "Let me guess. Some sort of self-destruct sequence."

"I can't tell, but if each of the small signatures we're reading corresponds to one of these spider droids, then they're clustering up there."

"Compose a map with those readouts and have it patched through to everyone," he ordered. Then he raised his voice: "Everyone listen up! It appears the enemy is protecting its power source to delay us until it self destructs. We're moving out right now." He pointed at the geth: "You, on the vanguard and the rearguard, in pairs."

"Acknowledged."

They strode forward into the corridor, coming across several sealed doors. "Professor, I need some directions, and I need them fast."

"Oh, sure, captain... there should be a large blast door by the end of that corridor, on the right wall. You open that and it should lead into a stairwell."

"Readouts?"

"None there, captain."

"It's an ideal place to put a sentry gun, sir," the Centurion leader cautioned.

"Not to mention something worse than that."

The blast door seemed thick and heavy alright - very similar to the heavy airlock doors, Javik realized. "Zero-g check, everyone."

Krauze strode forward and got to work on the door. "20 seconds, sir."

The Prothean considered having him put an optic fiber wire through the door to look at the other side, but there was neither time enough for a cautious approach, nor a way to know what the fixed defenses could look like. "Hurry!"

One of the geth switched its flamethrower for a particle cannon and took position at the side of the door while the other stood by to pry it open. Krauze put away his blow torch: "It's a go!"

The prime forced the door open - and it was immediately engulfed by a swarm of scarabs. "PULL BACK! PULL BACK!" Javik bellowed. There was a brief flash of fire before Krauze was overwhelmed by the cloud of flyers, and then they only heard his shrieking. A burst of green light set the bugs ablaze and a shockwave followed it a split-second later, causing a spectacular detonation - but it was too late for the engineer.

The other geth brought again his fire weapon to bear and flooded the corridor with a stream of burning fuel. The gnatlike robots were incinerated, allowing the Revenants and the remainder of Beta squad to witness the grisly fate of Krauze: it had taken mere instants for the things to flay him alive. The geth prime had fared better; its frame leaked white liquid in many places, but was still functional.

"Actual, we have a KIA, ensign Dieter Krauze," Bondarenko reported quietly.

"Understood," Miranda acknowledged from the other side, her voice equally cool.

The undamaged geth walked past the bloody mess into the stairs proper, holding the swarms at bay. Javik took a second to assess the damage sustained by its comrade, and to nod briefly at Sachiko for her quick reactions.

There was another door at the bottom end of the stairs. One of the Revenants got it open, to immediately retreat behind the protection of two geth primes that promptly burned the swarms on the other side to ashes. On their commander's orders, two krogans toting particle cannons followed behind closely, their HUDs slaved to the geths' sensors. There was another corridor, albeit a shorter one-

"Spiders!" one of them warned and loosed a shot. The lance of energy blew the construct to pieces. The remaining three threw up a defensive screen blocking the corridor - or tried to. One moment the other krogan was taking a step backwards, and the next, one of the constructs was being sent flying against the wall as the battlemaster hit it with a biotic charge. A jump, a fist smashing on the floor, and a shockwave threw the other two on their sides. Particle beams and Widow shots dealt with them.

"Door!" Two salarian Revenants rushed to get it open, geth standing by with flamethrowers.

"Cirron!" Javik barked.

"Large room on the other side, by the looks of it... I'm getting many readings clustered together..."

"Too many for a blind heads-on assault..." The Prothean looked at his engineers. "Send out scout droids!"

"Yes sir!"

The krogans latched each on one of the door panels and pulled them to the sides, while the geth stood guard with flamethrowers in hand. The salarians produced spheroidal devices from their backpacks, turned them on, and programmed commands on their omni-tools. The spheroids circled in place twice, then crossed the threshold.

Javik followed their progress on his own omni-tool. It looked awful. The room was not simply large, it was vast. The door led to a gangway overlooking huge devices, pipes and machinery of all sizes; they had to run some ten-odd steps to a stair down, entirely into the open, completely exposed, without cover of any kind. Clouds of flyers went about menacingly. Most of the constructs-

"Those are new." The screen was displaying bipedal droids, armored like the spiders, again with no visible eyes or sensors. Their arms ended in articulated hands wielding heavy long-barreled weapons.

"They appear broadly similar to us, Javik-commander," one of the geth primes judged.

* * *

"I wonder what those weapons would do," Val'Akar mused.

"Anti-materiel guns, most likely," Miranda commented. "Biotics on one side, heavy weapons specialists on the other. One disables the target, the other neutralizes it."

"How many are there?"

"There's too much clutter in the hall," Javik replied. "If we can see eight, think there's fifteen or more."

"Finesse isn't going to cut it here." Aria spoke for the first time. "Every moment we dawdle that station inches closer to exploding."

Lawson and Mikhailovich looked at each other. The admiral sighed. "Status on the other teams?"

"Alpha team should be converging on the location, sir."

"Just a few seconds until we get this door open," Ashley reported. "We have four vanguards among us. Javik's team has six. If those readings are correct there's about thirty targets in there."

"Shock and awe is not going to cut it there, _chica,"_ Vega intervened. His Gamma team was too far to contribute anything other than tactical advice. "There's those swarms to worry about too."

"My men can handle those," Javik replied. "Reliably."

Miranda considered it. It was going to require extremely tight coordination. With that many biotic-capable droids in there anyone who got their shields down would be dead in the water. "Legion, you're in charge of directing this engagement. Pick individual objectives for each squad member as they are detected and neutralized."

"Acknowledged."

A few instants later: "Alpha team is in position."

"Alpha and Beta, readiness check."

Javik resented being directed by a synthetic, but he could not fault Lawson's reasoning. No organic mind could react to such a complex scenario quickly enough. He made sure his troops were all prepared and loadouts were adequate.

"Hades Beta is ready, sir," he heard Bondarenko report.

"Beta team is prepared to go," the prothean reported in turn.

Something rumbled lowly within the huge room, sending shivers down everyone's spines. "Alpha team is ready."

"Until the engagement is over, you will only heed commands on my part," Legion instructed.

"Roger that," Williams acknowledged.

"Understood," Javik echoed.

Muscles tensed and teeth clenched in anticipation. Then the order flashed on everyone's heads-up display: "Execute."

* * *

Sachiko anticipated being ordered to take part on the opening barrage. Singularities appeared all over the room as over a dozen biotics unleashed their power, pinning the bulk of the flayer swarms into place. Then the vanguards attacked, charging at their spider targets and smashing them to bits.

That drew upon them the attention of the androids, who brought their weapons to bear and fired. The weapons in question were portable laser cannons, the kind of thing usually outfitted on the hull of starships as part of their GARDIAN point-defense systems. Only Reaper technology could produce barriers capable of protecting against focused laser beams.

Legion knew that there was no way to tell what the enemy would bring to bear upon them, that being the reason for sending vanguards forward. As close combat specialists their defenses were supposed to withstand extreme amounts of damage, and this was one such case. All the vanguards took laser hits, with the krogan drawing the fire of two simultaneous shooters.

Nobody could withstand that kind of assault for long, but that was where the shooters came to fore. Particle cannons were new tech based on Collector artifacts, and chewed through armor and barriers like they were not there. They performed as expected. A dozen beams lanced through the darkness, piercing through each of their android objectives. Legion's choice of targets meant that some of the particle lances found two androids per shot.

Then, the biotics lit up the targets clustered around the singularities. The Revenants had picked up Javik's lessons and plastered the swarms with unstable and persistent fields of warping energy that ate through them like fire through paper. The resulting explosions sent a hail of flechette-like shrapnel all over the hall. Some of the biotics, suddenly without a target, were directed to countering the assaults of the few remaining spiderlike constructs that remained until they were dealt with.

With a swift swing of her blade, Sachiko stroke the last android down. The whole engagement lasted fourteen seconds.

* * *

Mikhailovich did not allow his relief to show. "Casualties?"

Miranda was compiling the reports. "No fatalities. Sixteen wounded. We have to immediately evacuate Kreitmann, Kryszycha and Lemarchand."

"Send a medical detail ASAP. And I don't care how, get that reactor stabilized!"


	8. Consolidation

2187 Ubtao - Normandy SR2

"Alright, professors, give us the brief," Mikhailovich asked. "What are these things?"

Cirron and T'Soni looked at each other for a last time, then Liara spoke: "You're not going to like the answer, Admiral." The spiderlike thing on the examination table was clearly an artificial construct; it had articulated servos and other similarly defined mechanical features. But what Liara held in her hand for them to see was a heavy transparent flask containing a bluish, glowing metallic fluid. "There is no centralized power source. All the components draw energies from this fluid. We thought it to be some sort of formula composed of eezo and some other oils... then we put it under the scope." A hologram depicted a mishmash of bacteria-like things swimming around particles of pure element zero. "There is eezo alright on the fluid, and it powers the construct, but these nanites are a critical component of the energy delivery system."

"They're akin to living cells," Cirron added. "In fact, it would not be unwise to say that we are standing in presence of a bio-robot." The hologram changed to show a scan of all the... capillaries and vessels on the construct. "This is strikingly similar to a circulatory system. In fact, it _is_ such a system, put together with a nervous system for good measure."

"What about their biotics capability?" Lawson inquired.

Liara shook her head. "The only component we could link to that was a part of their... 'heads', a hollow chamber with tiny mechanisms on its inner walls." The hologram changed to depict the mechanisms. She looked at Cirron: "We... guess... they allow for precise modulation of mass effect fields. If that's true then this chamber is used for creating and focusing biotic effects, but the exact process..."

"It's too early to hazard a guess. We could only agree on a tentative explanation... that the eezo-nanite mixture somehow mimics the eezo-neuron interaction," her colleague added.

"That doesn't explain why the fluid isn't trying to warp its way through the flask," Val'Akar objected.

"Well, there's a possible answer to that," Liara smiled. "I don't see an amplifying chamber inside the flask, captain. Besides, this is no ordinary glass flask. The nanites would eat through it so we had to find something more resilient."

"What about the androids?" Shepard asked.

Cirron picked up another transparent flask. It contained a similar metallic fluid, albeit a less refulgent one. "They are built in a similar way, but there's much less eezo on the mixture. We can't even suppose what's it there for. It's a more straightforward mech - it has independent power sources for its barrier engine and weapons. We learned some from the laser cannons your crews salvaged, though we need much more specialized equipment for a complete analysis; they are so sturdy that disassembling one took us the better part of a day. The alloy they're constructed with is very tough. The focusing and cooling systems are leagues over anything any Citadel race can put in the field, superior even to geth technology."

Worried looks were exchanged by the people on the laboratory. "Liara, the flayer swarms - are they derived from Reaper technology?"

That question had been expected. "The underlying principle is the same, but construction is different. Collector Seeker swarms were organic. Flayer swarms are not. They are powered by that nanite-eezo mixture. We believe this is merely a case of concurrent technological evolution."

"How ancient is all of this?" Javik asked keenly.

"We were coming to that." The hologram displayed an ice-encrusted chunk of debris. The purple alloy still bore some scorch marks. "Before testing the artifacts salvaged from the station, we worked on the leftovers floating around. Whatever happened here, it took place at least 100,000 years ago."

"The Inusannon..." The prothean's eyes were boring onto the hologram. "This alloy - this material, is it similar to that of a Reaper vessel?"

There was a brief silence. Then Liara answered hesitatingly: "The material composition is a match, but I-we can't establish with absolute certainty that this fragment belonged to a Reaper."

"If that's so, we're going to act as if that were the case," Mikhailovich decided.

"Would that mean that there still are Reapers around?" Val'Akar asked with a trace of alarm in his voice.

"Unlikely," Cirron replied slowly. "When the Crucible activated, it shot through all relays, caring not whether they were dormant or not..."

Liara dropped the other shoe: "But this one was pristine, and every single other required repairs. If Reapers ever did go through this relay, we cannot rule out a presence of their kind on this galaxy."

"How would you explain that this relay was not affected by the Crucible?"

Both asari were reluctant to speak. Finally the archaeotech specialist did: "An... associate of miss Lawson speculated with the possibility of this relay being constructed by the protheans' own predecessors. If that was actually the case, and that's a theory of which we have no direct evidence at all, they may have done something differently - but how much different from a Reaper relay would this one have to be in order to be transparent to the Crucible's effects?" Cirron shook her head. "I apologize, I am no friend of wild speculation, but this is the best I can offer."

"So," the admiral summed up, "we have reasons to believe a battle took place here before a precursor race and the Reapers, a hundred thousand years ago. The precursors won and they left this station here to keep an eye on things, but we cannot rule out the possibility of more Reapers skulking around somewhere here in Andromeda, is that correct?"

Cirron and T'Soni bowed their heads with unease.

* * *

The Citadel - Council rotunda

"This is very disturbing news," dalatrass Talron, now councillor for the Salarian Union, weighed worriedly. "It opens up many uncomfortable questions. Did the Reapers know of this relay? If yes, why leave it there undisturbed? Didn't this professor Cirron report that no ship has used this relay for over 90,000 standard years? Very perplexing."

"Very," Alliance councillor Dominic Osoba echoed. "Then there's the fact of the derelict station. We don't yet know if its builders are around. And, taking into account this report, the last ship to jump to M31 was a precursor vessel. If the Reapers fought them over near the relay and failed, why not persist on their efforts? Why not send reinforcements?"

"Councillors, if I may," Hackett cut in, refocusing their attention upon him, "as professor Cirron put it, this is purely speculative. I regret to recognize that there is a possibility of Reaper forces using other points of entry into M31, just as they used multiple relays to return to our galaxy. There is also the chance of them completing their harvest and allowing the station to survive simply because there wasn't anyone to harvest there."

Aethyta was not happy with her designation as councillor for the Asari republics, but bitching about it was not going to get her anywhere. "That doesn't mean you're simply going to let the issue rest, Admiral, am I right?"

"Absolutely not. We've just scratched the surface of all the mysteries posed by that relay. With the Council's permission, I'm recruiting more scientists to study the station, the Ubtao system, and the M31 relay network."

"There may be more than this one relay there, that's a most sensible suggestion," Talron allowed.

"Councillor Quentius? You haven't yet voiced your opinion," Osoba inquired of his turian counterpart.

"I believe that we have enough problems of our own here to borrow some more from another galaxy," was the terse reply. "That relay and that whole galaxy should remain off limits for civilian enterprises for the time being, to begin with."

"It's going to be problematic, it being on Terminus space."

"I never said it would be easy. It's a potential source for no end of trouble."

"Councillor, if we pursue that policy we risk hostilities with Terminus agencies, and however depleted everyone is, we are in no position to start another conflict," Hackett stated.

"I don't like it, but the Admiral is right," Aethyta recognized.

"The quarians are already building a station on D9 to keep a permanent presence on the place," Talron noted. "If we stay back and say 'that relay is off limits,' nothing will stop them from monopolizing access to M31."

Osoba speculated, "And offering them an embassy here in exchange for doing that for us would only make it worse for them..."

"Maybe for them, but not for the geth," Quentius intervened.

"What's going to happen if we recognize the geth?" Talron pondered. "How would public opinion react?"

"Public opinion saw them fighting the Reapers right here. They would support the move."

"The geth consider everything in light of their relationship with their creators," Hackett explained. "Before they made their peace, they were building a Dyson sphere to harbor their collective consciousness. They care little for what the rest of the galaxy thinks of them."

"So that's it for that idea..." Aethyta frowned.

"Not quite. We can offer the quarians their embassy _after_ they secure the Delta 9 relay."

"That merits consideration," Quentius agreed. "How many people know about M31? How safe is the information?"

"We are keeping a very tight lockdown on transmissions from the fleet stationed at D9, but I don't expect the secret to last for long, councillors. Already there are Terminus parties wondering what is T'Loak's beef with us and the quarians."

"I'm worried about the chance of further leaks on her side..." Talron mumbled.

"Then you don't know Aria," Aethyta replied.

The curt line disquieted the dalatrass. A link between the matriarchy and the Omega kingpin was, according to STG, quite likely given how many thousand-year old asari there were. "What can you tell us that we do not know?"

"I won't insult your intelligence and pretend you didn't consider how contrary to her own interests leaks would be. She knows we ignore her role on this affair at our own peril."

* * *

2187 Ubtao - Victory SR1

"Captain Javik, we are approaching our destination," the asari pilot reported.

"Good. Power up the probe launcher."

"Deceleration in 3... 2... 1..." There was a soft humming noise as the starship slowed down. "Deceleration complete. Stealth systems engaged and operative."

The prothean and his batarian lieutenant walked into the cockpit. Orbak worked a switch, and the armored shutters retracted themselves to reveal an orange-reddish planet. This was the first world they visited on the system's habitable zone; the previous two planets, a gas giant and a frozen ball of iced methane and rock, had merited mere stops for -futile- probe firing, but nothing else.

Except for anomalies not quite similar to the one announced by a ladar operator: "Contact. Artificial satellite on geosynchronous orbit... no, disregard that, sir, it appears to be a vessel of escort-class displacement."

The hologram screen brought up a pict-capture. "I agree," Orbak commented wryly. "Those engines are too big for a satellite."

Javik studied the craft. It appeared grossly ordinary, with a configuration not unlike that of a long range scout. No visible weapon ports, large propulsion systems, several antennae.

"Probe launcher primed and ready, captain," the gunnery officer reported. He was a gruff turian with half of his crests missing and synthetic legs, his name Hark.

"Don't... release it just yet." The prothean was thinking. A starship, in stationary orbit, large engines and, by the looks of it, advanced communications gear. That was confirmation: another spacefaring civilization inhabited that galaxy, but however revolutionary a discovery that was... detection was something they needed to avoid now. "I want that ship and whatever transmissions it sends or receives dissected through and through."

"Sir," Orbak asked quietly, "someone is evidently interested on this world... why not on the relay, why not on the station by its side?"

Javik turned towards Maturin, his salarian communications officer. "I want this world scanned. Find out what that vessel is looking for."

"At once, captain."

"Two more contacts on ladar range, sir," the operator reported. The hologram changed to show a representation of the planet and the positions of the starships orbiting it. Each one appeared to have their instruments trained on a separate continent.

The prothean was perplexed to find himself missing the expert advice of professor Cirron. The asari he had left at the now secured derelict space station, which she was gleefully exploring under the careful guard of a whole brigade of geth troops. He could raise her via QEC, but then there would be valuable time lost on explanations and there was no way to know if the _Victory's_ stealth could be pierced by their sensors.

A few minutes later came Maturin's report: "Captain, that ship is emitting next to no EM radiation of any kind. Probably it's handling its communications or exploration via tightbeam or some similar method."

Orbak thought out loud, "They aren't worried about being detected from space...?"

"They could as easily be worried sick about it. Electromagnetic emissions can be picked up far beyond their effective detection range." That was a fundamental element of covert operations: shut the hell up and keep your damn ears and eyes open.

"You believe they're under EMCON?" Hark asked.

"I would," the salarian replied. "Especially if I don't know much about the neighborhood. Or if I don't want to be found."

"And if neither was a concern?" Javik inquired.

"Then someone's around to look out for them," the turian answered simply.

"I found what they're watching," Maturin announced, then the hologram on the CIC shifted to show a pict-capture.

"They're fighting down there..."

"Well, it doesn't seem like they're politely exchanging opinions." The picture could not be any more evident. Two sprawling complexes were set roughly a few hundred kilometers apart, the land between them charred black and littered with the husks of destroyed vehicles.

The salarian zoomed in on one of the vehicles. It was a tracked missile launcher. "This is... antiquated, to say something," Hark commented. "If they're actually at war, why is there no support fleet around?"

"Limited war," Javik answered. "We're looking at a planet contested by two or more parties. Instead of an all-out conflict that would probably destroy the world's ecosystem, a series of guidelines and goals is established. All participants are bound by the same rules."

"A war with everyone on equal footing?" Maturin scoffed. _That's *idiotic*!_ "Nobody would respect those rules."

"Not unless the penalties for breaking them would be severe enough. I would know. It was one way used by my kind to settle disputes between the lesser races under our wing."

* * *

Citadel cruiser Khar'Shan

Just as aboard the _Aconcagua,_ the Hades troopers here were pariahs. The failed coup of the Citadel was fresh on the memories of every serviceman aboard that ship. The blood shed by the Cerberus veterans had gained them some grudging respect from other servicemen, but no trust. Trust would be the one thing they would never get.

Tanaka was reminded of that each time they walked into the officer's ward room for her meals, where she would not get anything other than the most perfunctory of greetings and salutations from their fellows, regardless of their ranking. There was glacial recognition of her skills when exercising or sparring - but when she finally found a match on a veteran asari huntress, there had been neither gloating nor smug smirks nor snide remarks.

Sachiko found it disturbing. Apathy was worse than outright hatred. She had mentally steeled herself for that while aboard the Bataan, which made it only slightly easier. But not even among her Hades colleagues she found companionship, even if Bondarenko was a most commendable officer and leader who also was keenly aware of the devils his men were fighting. She had only found some release on actual deployment, during these moments when thought ceded control to brute instinct and training. _  
_

And so, most of her time out of duty she spent alone on a danger room, fighting the hardest scenarios she could realistically tackle. It was the closest she could get to that-

-And she did not take interruptions well. "Exercise terminated by executive override," the VI reported directly to her earbuds.

The Phantom took off her mask and stood slowly from her position, crouched behind cover to evade the targeting sensors of a ceiling turret. An angry sigh, but nothing else. She did not want to give anyone grounds for attacking her, but the self-restraint was slowly wearying her.

When she was a few steps from the pneumatic door to the dressing room, it opened with a soft hiss. Two people walked in. She recognized the drell as the man that had reviewed her squad along with miss Lawson, back on the _Aconcagua. _And, next to him, an asari in red, tight-fitting uniform with an incomprehensibly low neckline that left little of her ample bosom to imagination. Her eyes were blue, large, and quiet. Disciplined.

Krayt bowed his head slightly. "Ensign Tanaka, is it?"

She saluted. "You got the pronunciation right, sir, if that's what you were asking."

"No need to salute. I'm not on official business."

_Why would an agent of a Spectre pay me a private visit? _A drell's eyes were enigmatic. The sclera was always deep black, as opposed to that of a human eye. "What do you need of me, sir?"

"How would you describe your experience on this new tour of duty, ensign?"

She did not react. "I'm sure my superiors could tell you everything you want to know on that matter."

The drell arched an eyebrow. "Can they? I guess not. They can give me your fitness reports and your post-mission debriefings. I'm not going to find the answer to my question there."

"Sir, if you believe that, then nothing I tell you will satisfy your curiosity."

"Ensign, your performance was nothing short of stellar on that last assignment. Your commander showed me the feeds. The reports do you no justice."

"That's something I can live with, sir." _  
_

_For now, but how long can you keep it up?_ Krayt gestured at the asari. "Lady Samara is an old acquaintance of miss Lawson. She is one of the last few living Justicars. You didn't see her, but she was part of the third team that entered the station. Lawson asked her to come and have a look at you."

_Why would she do that? It's not like she doesn't know me enough to need an assessment..._ "I need to ask, sir. Why?"

"Because she is concerned about you and your fellows." A bow of his head, then he turned and left.


	9. Encounter

2187 Ubtao - Citadel cruiser Khar'Shan

Sachiko could see every fleck of color on Samara's eyes with enormous, unreal clarity. They filled her mind entirely, relaxed, unwavering, calm on their disposition. The stance of their owner was equally tranquil, so solid-looking that it seemed no amount of force could bring her down.

Without warning and without motion, the Phantom's body was ablaze with tendrils of bluish energy as she loosed a single shockwave against her opponent - a shockwave that coalesced right on the asari's forehead.

The wave of force went past the Justicar. She had moved. Now she stood with both feet aligned with Sachiko, left arm outstretched, two fingers almost casually pointed at her.

Tanaka did not allow herself the moment of surprise. An assault as perfect as any human biotic could manage had been completely ineffective. Somehow Samara had cut cleanly through her shockwave. Now her riposte would come.

She suppressed the urge to somersault out of the way when energy flared on Samara's eyes. The air in front of her changed and buzzed as a swirling orb of coruscating blackness materialized. A decoy. She had her barriers up. A singularity could not affect her. A small fraction of her mind worked to divine the next assault while the rest was focused into trying to read something on her opponent.

An almost invisible flick of Samara's wrist and now Sachiko felt a tingling on her lower legs. Instantly she put up a reinforced barrier, recognizing the attack for what it was - the prothean's infamous technique, a constant channeling of encroaching energies to slowly eat up through her defenses. Again Samara flared - this time Tanaka glimpsed a foot taking a brief step backwards-

The asari's fist aimed for Sachiko's stomach as the full strength of the charge hit her. The Phantom's barrier almost collapsed under the brutal assault, but not before allowing her to jump aside, roll on the floor and stand back up right before another attack almost hit her, this time a swirling blob of energy. A warping sphere of her own met it in midair causing it to harmlessly explode.

Samara nodded in approval. She had not even broken up a sweat, whereas Sachiko's heart was racing. "Nicely done," the Justicar congratulated her.

The Cerberus veteran knew the commendation was well merited, even if she herself felt as if she was again in the Academy as a fresh recruit pitted against the head biotics instructor. "I barely managed to stop it all, ma'am."

"You did stop it."

Tanaka nodded. "An improvement since our meeting, I agree."

In unison they started walking towards the dressing room. "You learn very fast."

A shrug. "I have to." She felt the urge to ask: "Ma'am, are Justicar training regimes like this?"

"They were much harder."

"'Were'?"

"Not many of my Order survived the Reaper War."

Since being introduced to each other four days hence, their training sessions had been lengthy exercises with scarce comments spoken, if at all. Initially their bouts had been horribly lopsided - Samara was as skilled and powerful as centuries of training and experience could make her. Sachiko had gotten better then, though she harbored no illusions about becoming a match for her. Even so, a mutual respect was developing - and today's small success made the Phantom feel confident enough to break the ice.

"I believed Justicars confined themselves to asari space."

"Once the training of my novices is complete, they will return."

_Her novices?_ "You mean the other asari that were on Gamma team."

"And a few others."

"And you won't be returning?"

"I will find another cadre of novices to train."

They entered the dressing room. Sachiko scrupulously took off her training armor and secured it into its locker. She turned her head to see Samara pulling herself out of her skin-tight practice fatigues. The centuries of fighting were etched on the asari as if some mad demons had embroidered them on her skin with metal claws. "Ma'am... I hope not to intrude by asking, but why keep the scars?"

"It's a part of our Code. Scars mark both a failure and a success. The failing was not to evade the assault, the success was to survive it. Failures and mistakes beget wisdom and knowledge. To remove the scars is to forget."

"But sometimes you can earn a scar because of something beyond your control..."

"Cures for hubris. There always are things beyond your control."

Sachiko allowed herself a closer look now, noting each scar and guessing at their origins. She realized that aside large burns around her left shoulder blade and on her waist, Samara had sustained injuries neither on her back nor on her face. Her respect for the asari increased.

"How do you know my commander?"

"We served under Shepard on the Omega 4 mission to destroy the Collectors."

Tanaka froze briefly. "I heard rumors of that... the Cerberus leader was furious because of the destruction of the Collector base..."

The Justicar did not stop folding her uniform. Even that simple task was done so mechanistically as to resemble a ritual. "A good thing that we did destroy it. The evils at work there challenged imagination."

* * *

Sachiko stood in front of the door. At once a projector spawned the holographic avatar of a VI. "Please state your name and business."

"Ensign Sachiko Tanaka, to visit miss Lawson."

"Stand by." The VI remained still for exactly eleven seconds before the door opened: "Please come in."

Miranda was not alone. There was an asari there -not Samara, she did not ring a bell- and... "Ensign, welcome," her commander welcomed her. "Meet Liara T'Soni and Captain Shepard."

Tanaka was dumbstruck. Immediately she drew herself to attention. "It's-it's an honor." Actually it was more than that. She could not bear to look at the legendary N7 in the eyes. Shepard had destroyed the Reapers, saved the galaxy... and defeated the Illusive Man. The man that had recruited her, the man for whom she had kidnapped, killed, blown up buildings and ships... her sins, her guilt only grew heavier in light of Shepard's deeds.

Unexpectedly Shepard smiled. "Ensign. Relax. It's alright." The key part of the message was left unsaid: _I understand. I bear you no grudges.__  
_

If they had been alone, Sachiko would have burst into tears. Through sheer force of will she managed to hold them back. "If-if I'm-I'm interrupting-"

"I'd have asked you to return later," Miranda said simply. "How did you like Samara?"

The Phantom cleared her throat. "She's... exceptional. I wouldn't want to be on her bad side." She waited for comments, but the three people looked at her expectantly. She continued: "Ma'am, why did you, er, send her to me?"

"Really?" A small smirk crept into Miranda's lips. "To help you blow off some steam, and to help her find suitable training partners for her novices." Then her face turned serious. "People on both the Alliance and on the Citadel is giving the cold shoulder to the Hades crews. I want to change that. In two months time you'll be fighting Samara and her initiates on equal terms. Only a few N7s can. I want the word to get out when that happens."

Sachiko beamed with pride. She smiled broadly. "I won't let you down, ma'am."

"Correction: you won't let yourself and your fellows down. If they aren't going to like you, then we'll get them to respect you."

The Phantom glanced at Shepard and T'Soni. "There is another reason for letting me in with those guests, right?"

Liara smiled. "You're fast, ensign. There is, but you'll know soon enough."

A nod. "I'll take that." She looked questioningly at Miranda.

"That will be all, ensign," the former Cerberus officer dismissed her. "You may leave now."

"Yes ma'am, thank you ma'am." She snapped a salute and left.

"Having you present was a great idea," Miranda said to Shepard.

"Yes. I won't get them far, I'm afraid... You and I can understand her. But almost no one else has our perspective."

Liara considered the words of her spouse. She, too, had a certain measure of that perspective. The Illusive Man had built a cocoon around Shepard by giving the N7 a ship closely resembling the original _Normandy, _carefully picking a certain crew, and sending them on missions that reinforced Cerberus' image of an agency that really held the interests of humanity at heart; the worst excesses of Cerberus had only been revealed during the Reaper War, and public opinion was familiar with those. "You certainly have your work cut out for you, Miranda."

"I have to try."

The asari looked warmly at her. "You feel guilty."

"Because I got away with everything! Being Shepard's-" She stopped abruptly.

"Being Shepard's couple protected you," Liara completed, her voice soothing.

An uncomfortable silence followed. "Um, yes. That."

The situation was horribly awkward. The asari defused it: "If you'll excuse me, I have some lab work pending. I'll catch up with you later, okay?"

Miranda was stunned for an instant. "Alright, Liara, we'll meet you for supper," Shepard acknowledged.

After a quick kiss on her spouse's lips and a friendly smile at Miranda, Liara left. Lawson interrogated the N7 with knotted brow and intrigued eyes.

The words did not come easily. "Liara and I... had a talk. She says... it's... fine... if we're together."

The girl dropped her mouth and bent slightly forward, even more confused. "But... the two of you... what's going to happen? And what about Alina?"

Shepard sat. The N7's face was serious, eyes somewhat gloomy. "She said... she knows I'm not going to be around forever. And she knows that you... love me. And that I love you both."

Miranda saw the struggle and took seat in the opposite chair. She tried to look at Shepard in the eyes and failed. "Shepard, I'm sorry, I... I didn't want you to get to think of that because of me."

A slow headshake. "You have nothing to apologize for. You'll understand better if... no, _when_ she melds with you."

"You don't mean..."

"Yes, I do mean. Simple words aren't going to cut it here." Shepard paused briefly. It had been a poor attempt at soothing her. "Liara knows your... feelings are sincere. That's why she asked you for help with Alina. She knows... she knows you-"

"Please. Don't." Tears were streaming down Miranda's cheeks. Shepard could not bear the sight and embraced her. Sobs racked her. "It's... so generous of her," she managed to say with a broken voice.

"Shush... easy, easy there... If it eases your mind, I'll tell you that it wasn't easy for Liara to come to that decision."

Miranda did not let go. "So she said that it's okay, but it's not." She felt Shepard tense and regretted the words on the spot. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It's... complicated, all of this."

She managed to laugh through her tears. "You could say."

Shepard eased away gently and looked at her in the eye. "Tell you what... why don't we try to make this work for all three of us instead of dwelling on how hard it's going to be."

Her lips curved into a brittle, hesitant smile. "I guess... I should go and talk to Liara then..."

* * *

Victory SR1

"Captain Javik," Maturin alerted his commander. "Another assault is starting."

For days they had followed the armies on the surface of the planet maneuver, probe and hammer at each other, to no avail. The three opponents were too closely matched. They had once watched how two of them had seemed to time their assaults to simultaneously strike at the third -and, at the time, the strongest- faction; the maneuver had been beaten off, but at a considerable cost.

"How long do you think this has been going?" Hark asked.

"Those complexes did not appear overnight," Orbak responded.

"They have very efficient construction technology." Maturin had watched a few specialized vehicles erect a radar post on the outer reaches of one complex in a matter of hours.

Hark noted, "I have yet to see some form of organic life down there." They had catalogued almost a hundred variants of tanks, rovers, aircraft and gunboats, but not a single living creature. "Not even something I could identify as a figure in powered armor."

"Probably there isn't anyone alive down there." Javik was studying the pict-captures. "I would hazard those forces are entirely synthetic."

Out of reflex he checked the ladar feeds. The three starships had kept their original positions in geosynchronous orbit. Maturin had conjectured that these were the actual command centers for each of the armies on the surface. Were that the case, then a simple jamming would leave an entire force left to their own protocols, with no exterior input to lead it. Again his mind pondered at the rules governing the conflict...

"Have you learned anything new on their communications?" He asked of his salarian officer.

"Apologies, sir, but nothing new so far. I'm positively sure we're just not within range to pick up anything." And they were not going to jeopardize their stealth to gamble for eavesdroppings, Maturin knew it._  
_

Javik grunted in acknowledgement. So far it appeared they had not been picked up, but the continuous surveillance had turned up nothing really meaningful. They had learned a lot on the hardware used by the parties contesting the planet. When it had been the protheans' job to arbitrate such conflicts, they had imposed substandard technology, extremely limited firepower and very precise goals on the participants. All logical constraints - the idea was that the winner would eventually colonize the contested world, a pointless endeavour if the planet was charred to a crisp.

Those same constraints, Javik was seeing on the struggle taking place on the planet's surface. Had the protheans themselves picked up that policy from the Inusannon? Given that the precursors to his own race had escaped to this galaxy, that was not an unlikely possibility.

Nothing of it was useful for learning more about the actual people somewhere in the stars that had sponsored the participants. Boring and tedious as it was, they could not close in to listen for tightbeam transmissions, if there were any taking place, and so risk detection. "Continue your observations," he instructed. His bridge crew acknowledged the command and saluted as the prothean walked down a corridor and entered the elevator that took him to his quarters.

Mere minutes seemed to have passed after Javik had laid down to rest when the communicator on his omni-tool flashed. He tapped it: "What is it?"

"Captain Javik, sir, we have a new contact on ladar," his asari yeoman informed with an apologetic tone on her voice.

"I'll be there shortly." A scarce minute later he was back on the bridge. The large hologram projector was already displaying the newly arrived... ship.

Maturin, Hark, Orbak and other officers were also looking with perplexity. They were staring at something... vaguely resembling a five-pointed star in shape, its lines oddly polygonal and faceted, with seams on the sides of each polygon. Coruscating tendrils of blue energy pulsated briefly all over the vessel, to fade away slowly.

"Sir, why am I reminded of you or a biotic about to launch an attack?" The salarian communications officer pondered with some alarm in his voice.

"That, Maturin, is because that is what this thing is about to do. Give me readings on this ship!" Orbak demanded.

"Target is now designated as Reaver-1, range 41300, bearing 0-8-8... it's aiming straight for one of the other contacts, sir," an operator informed. The hologram changed to depict the ladar output.

"Change of aspect on Orbiter-2," another operator reported, using the designation of the newcomer's apparent target. "Picking up power surges... sir, Orbiter-2 is broadcasting."

"Record it all," Javik ordered immediately.

"Already on it, sir." Then: "Orbiter-2 is powering up engines... sir, Orbiter-2 just emitted a massive pulse of electromagnetic radiation."

"Scans." According to their sensors, the ship was now enveloped by a dense magnetic field.

"A magnetic deflector screen," Maturin noted.

"The Hegemony experimented on those before mass effect fields were discovered," Orbak said.

"How efficient were they?" Javik asked.

"They never went past prototyping... they had very high energy requirements."

"Somehow they have gotten them right," the prothean muttered. "We are about to see how effective they are..."

Then the unexpected took place. The seams on the starlike vessel ignited - and the ship split into dozens of small pyramid-like objects. What happened next was terrifying to behold. Each of the small triangle-shaped drones fired a stream of searing white energy, completely bypassing whatever shields Orbiter-2 had erected and stripping away all the armor and outer bulkheads in seconds. The compartments of the vessel were immediately vented into space. Assorted debris and some... six-limbed figures... were sent flying away explosively as the ship depressurized.

"Statrep!" Javik ordered, shattering the spell of muted horror. At once the holographic projector brought up a side panel detailing the operational status of the _Victory_. "Power up our weapons and get the GARDIAN online! Nihaya, get us to the other side of the planet at penetration speed!"

"At once, captain!" Penetration speed meant the fastest possible velocity that the _Victory_ could manage without compromising stealth. The SR1 quickly sped away, Maturin keeping a nervous eye on the swarm that was busily dissecting Orbiter-2.

"Are they on pursuit?" Orbak inquired.

"Negative, sir. Apparently they did not pick us up."

"I'll settle for that. I wouldn't want to dare them to detect us," the batarian muttered.

"Take us to Orbiter-3," Javik ordered.

"You're going to warn them?" Orbak asked in surprise.

"Yes. We need information."

"No fighter craft we know of can mount that kind of weaponry..." Hark whispered half to himself.

"With your permission, Hark, no weapon we know of can do this." Maturin replayed the attack of the swarm. "Notice this... they did not merely pierce the armor, they literally flayed it away." It was true: when watched in slow motion, it was evident that the metal plating was not cut by the weapon. Instead, it was disassembled -apparently on the molecular level- one layer at a time, and the resulting detritus was channeled towards the attacking craft though the same beam of white energy. The end result was that entire bulkheads were disintegrated without visible leftovers.

Javik watched the replay in brooding silence, then ordered it replayed a second time, and then a third. "You're correct... this is no weapon I have ever heard of," he pronounced with a very deep voice they had seldom heard him use. "Did you record the broadcast from Orbiter-2?"

"Yes sir," Maturin reported. "I already have our cyber-warfare suit working on decrypting it, but we're going to need help to actually make some sense of the language. If the message is actually some form of spoken or written distress signal, that is."

The prothean grunted a reluctant acknowledgement. Psychometry could only get him so far without a living subject whose memories he could tap.

"Orbiter-3 just came into detection range," an operator reported. Then, a few seconds later: "Two new contacts, shuttle-sized, on atmospheric reentry vector."

Hark noted, "They've evacuated their ship... they were alerted. How?"

"Either via QEC, or they reached each other through their planetside installations," Maturin conjectured.

"If this people can agree on a limited war to settle their disputes then they probably have a means for getting in contact with each other," Orbak agreed. "Captain, do you want to investigate the ship?"

Javik tapped a command on a console to bring up the ladar feeds on the hologram projector. "Let us get closer, but not too much. They could have left their vessel primed for self-destruction." _I know I would._

They approached cautiously, constantly keeping track of the ladar feeds. _  
_

"Captain Javik, sir," an operator alerted, "activity on the surface is picking up." A video feed was brought up: two large mechanized formations about to collide had stopped, then turned around to return to their bases. Aircraft were being scrambled, and on the complexes proper blast doors were opening to reveal missiles ready for launch.

"Not the best time for a social visit," Orbak quipped.

"Not at all," the prothean agreed. He had seen enough for a first recon flight. He had authority to perform first contact with unknown species, but people evidently scared enough to set their conflict aside would not be exactly on a welcoming mood. "Prepare a surveillance satellite for deployment. Then take us back to the fleet."

* * *

Tuchanka - Solus fortress

Drau Morrak entered the meeting hall with no small measure of discomfort. This spartan stronghold was the seat of power for the coalition that ruled most of the krogan homeworld. The leader, Urdnot Wrex, and a dozen of allied chieftains awaited for his report. "Minister, I hope your journey did not tire you out too much," Wrex welcomed him hoarsely, his eyes scrutinizing him warily. "What news do you have for us? How did your mission fare?"

Like most of the highborn members of his clan, Morrak had been trained for imparting justice, not for duplicity, leadership or pandering. Normally he took pride on his impartiality and integrity, but right now he wished he had picked up some of the tools of the politician's trade. The news he brought would not be good for Wrex, whom he admired, not for his ongoing efforts to civilize his kin. He had already decided to hand out the bad part first. "The Council did not provide an answer for our primary request."

The hall erupted in outrage, as he knew it would. "Bunch of pompous, lazy pyjaks!" one of the chieftains snarled.

"We fight for them, we bleed for them, we die for them, and what did we get for that?" another shouted out, a chorus of angry yeses backing him up.

"Enough yammering!" Wrex slammed the stone table with a crackling fist. A thunderous boom jolted everyone into startled silence. "We haven't heard it all, you lot of princesses! What did the Council say, exactly?"

Morrak waited a second before continuing. "The Council 'regrets not being able to rule on our petition for colonization rights at this time'." Angry murmurs started again but Drau ignored them and continued. "It's... understandable. This is the first time on Citadel history that all Council seats are appointed at the same time. Entirely new working procedures have to be instituted from scratch. The Hackett interim regency did well on restoring some of the Citadel government structure, but there is much work to be done."

"Paper-pushing wimps," a clan leader muttered.

"Those paper-pushing wimps can settle their issues without everyone putting guns to each other's heads." The whispering was cut short by Urdnot Bakara's severe voice. She wielded power unlike any krogan had ever attained. All females, regardless of clan and upbringing, were fanatically loyal to her. A word of Bakara's and entire clans could be deprived of progeny rights - and thus wither and die. "In case you missed something that's what we're trying to do here." She turned to Drau. "Minister, please carry on. What else did your visit to the Council yield?"

"Nothing concrete, Mother," the male replied respectfully using her honorific title. "Except for this: after the meeting was over I was approached by a salarian Spectre. His name is Jondum Bau." Wrex's eyes glittered with recognition but he added nothing. "He whispered to me that the Council will soon be issuing invitations for new Embassies to be opened. The batarians will be asked to rejoin the Citadel, along with the quarians and ourselves."

A small smile crept on the Urdnot chieftain's mouth. "It's a start," he conceded.

"What about the demilitarization act? Will it be lifted?" Another clan leader demanded.

"Bau did not mention it. To be honest, I did not ask him on the matter," Drau admitted. "Petitioning for the act to be repealed would send the wrong message."

"'Wrong message?'" The chieftain was indignant. "Wrong message. Pirates prey on the merchants that alleviate our food shortfall, prices are on the damn clouds, and all we can do about it is complaining to the CDEM. Tell me what you think about your 'wrong message' now!"

"Forsan, we've been through this already," Wrex exhaled tiredly.

"Council forces have just been patrolling the trade routes for less than a standard week. Prices should drop before next month," Drau noted.

Forsan Quth insisted, "I say again that this would not happen if we had authority to police our own space."

"I agree," Bakara said stonily. "That is a right we forfeited and that we must regain. Save your hot-blooded words for the varren fights, chieftain." The Forsan leader glowered at her but did not respond.

"You were right about timing," Wrex told Drau, "but you did right." He turned again towards the dozen clan leaders. "Speaking of food: I want to hear how have you fared with the hydroponics initiative." His stare turned relentless.

The Ravanok cheiftain was the first to speak. "My clan has had some successes. That quarian tech likes closed environments, and we have kilometers of vacant shafts in our mines. But transplanting the saplings on the surface is another whole matter. We've killed two varren and a harvester for each one that has taken root. And then there's the thresher maws..." The Urdnot leader mentally half-closed his ears to the speech. He knew what each clan had been doing on that matter; what he actually had wanted to know was who had taken to the task seriously. Most had either miserably failed at making some use of the agricultural technology Tali'Zorah had shared with them or not worked on it at all. The Ravanok, Nakmor and Drau clans had fared somewhat better.

"I want you sending people over to the other clans to help them out," he ordered the chieftains of those three tribes. Then he looked at the others. His voice turned colder than a night outside the shelters. "I'd better see some fresh produce from each of you within the next two months. And pray that I don't hear again of raiding each other's crops or I'll feed you to Kalros myself. Now, are you going to get to work, or do you plan on wasting any more time with your whimpering?"

With the meeting adjourned, Drau Morrak left the chieftains to their particular ways of socializing and went outside. However much Wrex insisted in focusing the energies of his people on reconstruction, that fortress was bristling with more weaponry and men at arms than any other hold in Tuchanka. On top of survival outside the underground bunkers being fraught with dangers, a show of force was still the best way to keep any number of krogan in line.

"How did that go?" A voice asked him.

Morrak stomped on the ground with frustration. "As expected. They all want more rights and privileges without working for them."

Ravanok Lisk probed cautiously, "Again the colonization issues?"

"Again. And the Forsan want the demilitarization act repealed." Drau believed in Wrex's cause, unlike his elders. His was a small clan that had secured its future by allying themselves with the Urdnot early on. The Mother's words had expressed his viewpoint with absolute clarity: those rights had to be earned again. "I don't see that happening. I hope I'm right. If that happens the few credits used now for researching food sources and reclaiming the wastes will dry up." _How are we supposed to care for another planet if we can't heal the wounds of our home?!_

Lisk took a step forward and stood side to side with the young diplomat. "They are old. This is all they know. A better place has never been this close."

"They should rot here then. We should all rot here until we learn better."


End file.
